^^^ 




Class _l_liMl 

Book. .H37 

GcpightU? 



CQEHBGHX DEPOSIC 



?^ 



SHOUT COURSE 



IN 



L I T E R A.T XJ R E, 



ngM m& %mtiitm. 



JOHN S. liAKT, LL.D., 

PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE 
COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 







PHILADELPHIA: J 
ELDREDGE & BROTHER, 

No. 17 North Seventh Street. 

1873. 



ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 



A SERIES OF TEXT-BOOKS 

ON THE . X I 



JOHN S. HART, LL.D. 



T'B 



?^ 



First Lessons in Composition. \\^1 

Composition and Ehetoric. 
A Short Course in Literature. 

And for Colleges and Higher Instituliions of Learning: 

A Manual of Englisli Literature. 
A Manual of American Literature. 



^V- — ^^:^- 



">) Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

} ELDREDGE & BROTHER, 

y in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, 



f 



J. FAGAN & SON, 
ELECTROTYPERS, PHILAD'A. ^^^ 




CAXTON PRESS OF SHERMAN & CO. 




Preface. 



3>@<C 



rriHE present volume is in the main an abridgment 
-^ of two larger works by the same author, one on 
English Literature, the other on American Literature. 
In many schools, it is found impracticable to devote to 
the subject of Literature the amount of time needed to 
master the two volumes named, and yet it is thought 
best not to omit the study altogether. For the accom- 
modation of such schools tliis compend has been pre- 
pared. In using it, great advantage will arise from 
having copies of the larger works accessible to the 
scholars, as well as to the teachers, for the purpose 
of reference. 




GONT ENTS 



Part I. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION, 17 

CHAPTER I. 

English before Chaucer. 

The Brut of Layamon, ......... 19 

The Ormulum, ......... 20 

The Ancren Riwle, Robert of Gloucester, . . . . . .21 

Robert of Brunne, Metrical Romance, . • . . . . . 22 

CHAPTER 11. 

Chaucer and his Contemporaries. 

Chaucer, . . . . . . . . . . .23 

Gower, Piers Plowman, ........ 25 

Wyckliffe, . 26 

MaBdevllle, . . . . . . . . . . 27 

CHAPTER III. 

Early Scotch Poets. 

Barbour, Wyntouu, ......... 28 

James I., 29 

Blind Harry, Henryson, Dunbar, ....... 30 

Gawin Douglas, ......... 31 

Lindsay, ........... 32 

1* V 



VI CONTEXTS, 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Age before Spenser. 

PAGE 
Caxton, Sir Thomas More, Skelton, Latimer, ..... 34 

Wyatt, Surrey, . . . . . . . . . . 35 

Tusser, .......... 36 

CHAPTER V. 

Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, and their 
Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, ........ 37 

SECTION I. — Spenser and Contemporary Poets. 

Spenser, . , . . . . . . . . 38 

Sidney, ........... 39 

Raleigh, 40 

Sackville, Southwell, ......... 41 

Daniel, Drayton, Fairfax, ........ 42 

Giles and Phiueas Fletcher, Herbert, ....... 43 

SECTION II. — Shakespeare and the Early 
Dramatists. 

Rise of the English Dz-ama, ....... 43 

Marlowe, Shakespeare, ......... 46 

Ben Jonson, .......... 47 

Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman, . . . . . . .48 

Shirley and Others, ......... 49 

SECTION III. — Bacon and Contemporary Prose 
Writers. 

Bacon, ........... 49 

Roger Ascham, ......... 50 

Burton, Sir Richard Baker, Hakluyt, Fox the Martyrologist, . . .51 

Hooker, .......... 52 

CHAPTER VI. 

The English Bible and other Public Stand- 
ards of Faith and Worship. 

I. The EN'GLtsii BinLE. 

1. Wyckliffe's Version; 2. Tyndale's Version, . . . .54 

3. Coveidale's Version; 4. INLitthow's Version ; 5. The Great Bible, . 55 



CONTEI^TS. Vll 

PAGE 

6. The Geneva Tersion ; 7. The Bishops' Bible, . ... 56 

8. The Rheims-Douay Version, . . . . . .57 

9. King James's Yeislon, ....... 58 

II. The English Prayer Book, ....... 58 

III. The Shorter Catechism, . . , . . . . 60 

IV. English Hymnody. 

Sternhold and Hopkins, Tate and Brady, Rouse's Psalms, . .61 

Watts's Psalms and Uymns, Wesleyan Hymns, .... 62 

Successors to Watts and Wesley, . . . . . .62 



CHAPTER VII. 

Milton and his Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, .....*.♦ 63 

SECTION I. — The Poets. 

Milton, .......... 63 

Waller, Cowley, Wither, ........ 67 

Herrick, Suckling, Butler, Other Poets, ...... 68 

SECTION II. — Political and Miscellaneous. 

Clarendon, Prynne, ......... 69 

Hobbes, Sir Thomas Browne, . . . . . . . 70 

Bishop Wilkins, Izaak Walton, . ..;.., 71 

SECTION III. — Theological W^riters. 

Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Hall, Usher, . . . . . . 72 

Fuller, Pearson, Cudworth, ........ 73 

Barrow, Howe, Baxter, ........ 74 

Owen, Bunyan, .......... 75 

CHAPTER Vlllf 

Dryden and his Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, ........ 77 

SECTION I. —The Poets. 

Dryden, ........... 77 

Roscommon, .......... 78 

Dorset, Dian»atic Writers, <...«... 79 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

SECTION II. — Philosophiesfl and Miscellaneous. 

PAGE 

Locke, • ... 79 

Boyle, 80 

Temple, Evelyn, . . • . . • • • • .81 



SECTION III.— Theological Writers. 

Tillotson, ......... 

South, Stillingfleet, Beveridge, Bishop Ken, Matthew Henry, 



SECTION IV. — Early Friends. 

George Fox, Barclay, . . . . . . ... 83 

William Penn, . . . . . , . . . . 84 



CHAPTER IX. - 
Pope and his Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, ........ 85 

SECTION I.— The Poets. 

Pope, ........... 85 

Prior, Gay, Philips, ......... 87 

Parnell, Thomson, Blair, ........ 88 

SECTION II.— The Dramatists. 

Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, . . . . _ . 89 

Jeremy Colliei-, . . . . . . ^ . ' . .90 



SECTION III.— The Prose "Writers. 

Addison, . , . . . . , . 

Steele, .......... 

Swift, . . . . . . , . . . 

Arbuthnot, Shaftesbury, ....... 

Bolingbroke, Atterbury, ....... 

Berkeley, . ... 

Bentley, Boyle, ........ 

Middleton, De Foe, Wollaston, ...... 

HutchinHon, Ilutchcson, Hartley, Whiston, Bailey, Ephraim Chambers, 

SECTION IV. —Theological Writers. 

Butler, Leslie, Stacklionse, ....... 

Doddridge, Leland, Ridgley, Neal> Boston, .... 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER X. 
Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 

PAGE 

Introductory Remarks, , . . • • • • • 101 

SECTION I. — Miscellaneous Prose Writers. 

Dr. Johnson, .......... 101 

Burke, . . . . . . . • • .103 

Chesterfield, Junius — Sir Philip Francis, . . . . . . 105 

Hume, • 106 

Gibbon, Robertson, Kames, ........ 107 

Harris, Tyrwhitt, Lyttelton, ....... 108 

Elizabeth Carter, Lady Montagu, Elizabeth Montague, .... 109 

SECTION II.— The Novelists. 

Richardson, Fielding, ........ 110 

Smollett, Sterne, . . . . . . . . ♦ HI . 

SECTION III. — The Poets. 

Goldsmith, . . *. ... > . . . .112 

Gray, Collins, . . . , . . . . * . .113 

Shenstone, Akenside, Ramsay, Young, Falconer, Mrs. Steele, . , . 114 

Chatterton, . . . . , . . . . .115 

SECTION IV. —Theological W^riters. 

Warburton, Lowth, Hervey, Law, ....... 116 

Newton, Cruden, Lardner, . . . . . , . 117 

Bishop Challoner, Alban Butler, , , . . . . . ,118 

CHAPTER XL 
Cowper and his Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, ........ 119 

SECTION I. —The Poets. 

Cowper, , . . . . . . . . ... 120 

J. Newton, Darwin, ........ 121 

Beattie, Burns, .......,,. 122 

Graham e, Mrs, Inchbald, ,,,,.,,, 123 

SECTION II. —The Dramatists. 

Sheridan, . . . , . . . , , .123 

Garrick, Foote, Hume, .....♦*, 124 



CONTEIs'TS. 

SECTION III. — Miscellaneous Prose Writers. 



PAGE 

Hannah More, Madame D'Arblay, ....... 125 

Dr. Burney, . . 

Mrs. Eiidcliffe, Mackenzie, Paine, 



Godwin, Adam Smitli, 

Paley, . . . . 

IJeid, Adam Ferguson, 

Blair, Campbell, Ilorne Tooke, 

Warton, Sir William Jones, 

bishop Percy, "Walker, 

Lindley Murray, 



SECTION IV. —Theological AVriters. 

The TTesleys, Whitefield, ........ 135 

Toplady, McKuigbt, Milner, ....... 136 

Newcome, Watson, .......♦♦ 137 



CHAPTER XII. 

Sir Walter Scott and* his Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, . . ... . . . . 138 

SECTION L — The Poets. 

Byron. ........... 138 

Moore, Shelley, ......... 140 

Keats, Kirke, White, 141 

Campbell, Rogers, ......... 142 

Southey, ........... 143 

Coleridge, .......... 144 

•Toanna Eaillie, Mrs. Heraans, ........ 145 

Elizabeth Landon, Crabbe, , . . . . . . . 146 

Heber, Hogg, Bloomfield, . . . . . . . .147 

Pollok, ........... 148 

SECTION II. -The Novelists. 

Sir Walter Scott 148 

Maria Edgeworth, ......... 150 

Miss Austen, Jane Porter, Lady Blessington, ...... 151 

SECTION III. — Reviewers and Political Writers. 

GifTord, Mackintosh, ]52 

llazlitt. Canning, Cobbelt, ........ 15o 



CONTENTS. XI 

SECTION IV. — Philosophical and Scientific. 

PAGE 

Dugald Stewart, ......... 154 

Brown, Abercrombie, Djmond, Bentham, ...... 155 

Matthews, Ricardo, . . . . . . . . ^ . 156 

SECTION v. — Religious and Theological. 

Scott the Commentator, ......... 156 

Robert Hall, Legh Richmond, ....... 157 

SECTION VI. — Miscellaneous. 

Mrs. Barbauld, 158 

Dr. Aikin, Lamb, Roscoe, . . , - . . . . . 159 

Mitford, Gillies, 160 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Wordsv/orth and his Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, . . . . . . . . . 161 

SECTION I. —The Poets. 

Wordsworth, .......... 161 

Keble, 163 

Croly, Ebenezer Elliott, ........ 164 

Barbara, ilood, Hook, ......... 165 

J. Montgomery, R. Montgomery, Barton, T. H. Bayly, . . . .166 

SECTION II.— Novelists. 

Miss Mitford, Mrs. Opie, Lady Morgan, ...... 167 

Marryat, Borrow. ......... 168 

Charlotte Bronte and Sisters, ........ 169 

SECTION III. — Literature, Polities, and Science. 

Sydney Smicli, .......... 169 

Jeffrey, Brougham, . . . . . . . . .170 

"Wilson, 171 

De Quincey, .......... 172 

Lockhart, Jiandor, ......... 173 

Foster, Hallam, Hugh Miller, , 174 

SECTION IV. — Religion and Theology. 

Chalmers, Bridgewater Treatises, ....... 17o 

Tracts for the Times, Essays and Reviews, ...... 176 

Isaac Taylor, Mrs. Sherwood, . , . . . . .177 



XU CONTENTS. 

SECTION V. — History and Biography. 

PAGE 

Lingard, Sir Archibald Alison, .;..... 178 

Sharon Turner, Lord Campbell, . . . . . . . 179 

SECTION VI. — Miscellaneous. 

Arnold of Rugby, 179 

Matthew Arnold, Archibald Alison, ...... 180 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Tennyson and his Contemporaries. 

Introductory Remarks, . . . . . . . . . 181 

SECTION I. — The Poets. 

Tennyson, .......... 181 

Robert and Elizabeth Browning, ....... 183 

Mrs. Norton, .......... 184 

Barry Cornwall, Adelaide Procter, P. J. Bailey, Aytoun, . . . .185 

Bonar, Bickersteth, Charlotte Elliott, Jean Ingelow, Morris, . . . 186 

SECTION IL — The Novelists. 

Dickens, . . . . . . . . . . . 187 

Thackeray, .......... 189 

Bulwer-Lytton, . . . ... . . . . 190 

Disraeli— Father and Son, ........ 191 

Trollope — Mother and Sons, ........ 192 

Charles Reade, Mayne Reid, ........ 193 

Kingsley, Hughes, Lever, ........ 194 

Lover, Warren, James, ........ 195 

Collins, " George Eliot," Mrs. Gaskill, Miss Mulock, Miss Yonge, . . .196 

SECTION II. — Literature and Polities. 

C^rlyle, .......... 197 

Ruskin, Max Miiller, ......... 198 

G. C. Lewis, Latham, Craik, J. S. Mill, . . . . . . 199 

(•ladstone, Derby, Jerrold, Mrs. Jameson, ...... 200 

SECTION IV. — Philosophy and Science. 

Hamilton, Buckle, -....,.., 201 
Sl)cncer, Lecky, Argyle, . . . . . , , , .202 

Brewster, Whewell, Darwin, . ' , . , . . . , 203 

Owen, Lyell, Tyndale, .,....,.. 204 

SECTION v. — History and Biography. 

Maraiilay, 205 



(J rote, 



206 



l''rou(]e, Merivale, Milman, A. Strickland, ..... 207 

Kinglake, Helps, .......... 208 



CONTENTS. Xm 

SECTION VI. — Theological and Religious. 

PAGE 

Newman, .......... 208 

■ Wisemau, Manning, Pusey, ........ 209 

Colenso, Seeley, Robertson, ........ 210 

Whately, Faber, Home, .,,...... 211 

Trench, Alford, ,...,.,.. 212 

SECTION VII. — Miscellaneous. 

William and Mary Howitt, ........ 213 

Robert and William Chambers, Crabb Robinson, Richardson, , . . 214 

Smith's Dictionaries, Russell, the Times Correspondent, .... 215 

The London Times, . . , . , , . . , 216 

Other Journals, .......... 217 



Part II. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

INTRODUCTION, ......... 219 

CHAPTER I. 



The Early Colonial Period 

Whitaker's Good Newes, Sandys's Ovid, .... 

Vaughan's Golden Fleece, Wood's New England's Prospect, 
First Printing Press, Bay Psalm Book, John Cotton, T. Shepard, . 
Roger Williams, Eliot, Anne Bradstreet, .... 
Richard Mather, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, . 
President Blair, Col. W. Byrd, J. Logan, T. Chalkley, . 
J. Woolman, C. Colden, S. Johnson, President Clap, . 
Presidents Dickinson, Burr, Edwards, and Davies, 



220 
220 
221 
222 
223 
224 
225 
226 



CHAPTER 11. 

The Revolutionary Period. 

Introductory Remarks, . . . . . • • .227 

Franklin, Washington, John Adams, ...... 228 

Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, ....... 229 

Witherspoon, F. Hopkinson, Brackenridge, ..... 230 

Trumbull, Barlow, Dwight, Ames, ....... 231 

Ramsay, .......... 232 

2 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 
From 1800 to 1830. 

PAGE 
Introductory Remarks, R. T. Paine, Fessenden, ..... 233 

J. Hopkinson, Key, Woodworth, Drake, Brown, Wirt, Wilson, . . 234 

Audubon, N. Webster, Kent, ........ 235 

Story, Marshall, . 236 

CHAPTER IV. 
From 1830 to 1850. 

Introductory Remarks, ......... 237 

SECTION 1. — The Poets. 

Poe, 237 

Ilalleck, Dana, Plerpout, Percival, J. H. Payne, Sprague, . . . .238 

Mrs. Osgood, Hannah F. Gould, Mrs. Shindler, ..... 239 

SECTION II. — Novelists, etc. 

Cooper, ........... 239 

Miss Sedgwick, Miss Mcintosh, J. P. Kennedy, . . . . . 240 

Paulding, Sanderson, J. C. Neal, J. Neal, . . . . ' . .241 

Hoffman, Willis, Morris, Miss Leslie, ...... 242 

Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Child, Mrs. Judson, Mrs. Haven, .... 243 

Mrs. Hentz, .......... 244 

SECTION III. — History and Biography. 

Irving, ........... 244 

Sparks, Palfrey, Stone, Ingersoll, Guyarre, Allen, .... 245 

SECTION IV. —Literature and Criticism. 

Emerson, ........... 246 

M. Fuller, H. B. Wallace, Reed, Verplanck, Griswold, .... 247 

SECTION V. — Political Writers. 

Alexander and Edward Everett, D. Webster, . . . . .248 

J. Q. Adams, Burton, Clay, Calhoun, . . . . . .249 

Legare, Choate, Wheaton, Lieber, . . . . , . .250 

SECTION VI.— Scientific Writers. 

Silliman, Olmsted, Henry, Bache, Dunglison 251 

Hitchcock, Kane, Worcester, ........ 252 

Marsh, Anthon, Rush, ........ 253 

SECTION VII. —Theological V^^riters. 

Archibald Alexander, ......... 253 

James and Addison Alexander, ....... 254 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE 

Miller, Barnes, Breckinridge, . . . . . . . . 256 

Cox, Thormvell, Sprague, J. Jones, L. Beecher, . . ' . . . 257 

Moses Stuart, Ed. Robinson, Upham, Bethune, Channing, .... 258 

Fnrness, Parker, Potter, Doane, Turner, ...... 2C9 

Wayland, Alexander Campbell, ....... 260 

SECTION VIII. — Miscellaneous Writers. 

Mrs. Sigourney, ......... 260 

Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Phelps, Mrs. Gilman, . . . . . .201 

Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Tuthill, President Quiucy, ..... 262 

Mann, Schoolcraft, Downing, Gallaudet, Goodrich, . . . _ . 263 



CHAPTER V. 
From 1850 to the Present Time. 

Introductory Eemarks, ........ 265 

SECTION I.— The Poets. 

Longfellow, .......... 265 

Whittier, . . . . ' . . . . ... 267 

Bryant, Boker, .......... 268 

Read, Saxe, Holland, 269 

Fields, Street, Flash, Mrs. Preston, . . . . . . .270 

Alice and Phoebe Cary, Mrs. Kinney, ...... 271 

Randolph, Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, ...... 272 

SECTION II. — Literature and Criticism. 

Lowell, 272 

Tuckerman, Whipple, Kate Field, Tyler, R. G. White, . . . .273 

Duyckinck, Allibone, ........ 274 

Davidson, ... .^ ...... . 275 

SECTION III. — Magazinists. 

Holmes, Parton, ......... 275 

Mrs. Parton, Abigail Dodge, ........ 276 

Curtis, Howells, Iligginson, Trowbridge, ...... 277 

Gen. Hill, 278 

SECTION IV.— Journalists. 

Bennett, Greeley, Raymond, ....... 278 

Hurlbut, ........... 279 

Godkin, Godwin, Thompson, ....... 280 

Prentice, Ripley, Dana, Biddla, McMichael, Forney, ..... 281 

Mackenzie, Townsend, Reid, ....... 282 

New York Associated Press, Eggleston, Prime, Tilton, . . . .283 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



SECTION V. — Humorists. 



Artemus Ward, ....... 

Mark Twain, Mrs. Partington, Josh Billings, Leland, 

Jack Downing, Bagby, Longstreet, ..... 

SECTION VI. — Miscellaneous. 

Bayard Taylor, . . . .... 

Strother, Sargent, Giles, La Borde, .... 

Barnard, Ogdeu, "Wickersham, Swinton, .... 

Alden, ......... 



284 
285 



285 



287 
288 



SECTION VII. — Novelists. 

Hawthorne, Winthrop, ......... 288 

Thoreau, Dana, Mitchell, Kimball, Gilmore, Simms, .... 289 

J. E. and Ph. P. Cooke, Bird, Peterson, Melville, . . . . .290 

Arthur, Adams, J. Abbott, . . ...... 291 

J. S. C. Abbott, Stowe, Warners, . . . . . . .292 

Ritchie, Lippincott, Spofford, Alcott, Dickinson, Smith, .... 293 

Chesebro, Holmes, Terhune, Wilson, Lee, Whitney, ..... 294 

Baker, Sadlier, ......... 295 

SECTION VIII. —Historians. 

Prescott, Bancroft, . . . . . . . . . 295 

Ticknor, Motley, Kirk, Pollard, . ... . . . .296 

Shea, Thomas, Ellet, ......... 297 

Lossing, ........... 298 

SECTION IX. — Polities and Political Economy. 

Carey, Sumner, Stephens ........ 298 

Helper, ........... 299 

SECTION X.— Scientific. 

Agassiz, Guyot, ......... 299 

Maury, Steele, E. Brooks, Whitney, Bledsoe, . . . , .300 

Chase, Stuart, N. C. Brooks, McGuffey, Newell, Creery, . . ,301 

SECTION XI. — Theological. 



Hodge, . . . . . . . . 

McCosh, Porter, Boardman, . 

Jacobus, Shedd, Cuyler, Lewis, ..... 

Plumcr, Smyth, Scott, ..... 

Krauth, SchafT, Beecher, Chadbourne, Peabody, 

Hackctt, Samson, Eddy, McClintock, 

Stevens, Wliedon, Challen, Milligan, Mcllvainc, Odeuheinier, 

Stone, Tyng, Ken rick, ..... 

Spalding, Bayley, Hughes, England, Brownson, 



. 203 
304 

. 305 
306 

. 307 
308 




Part L 

Knglish Literature. 

INTRODUCTION. 

English Literature, strictly speaking, does not mean the litera- 
ture of England. 

There have been in England several successive races, each having 
a literature of its own. The old Celts, still represented by the Welsh 
in the west of England, had a literature, rather extensive too, which 
is no more English than the Hebrew is. The Anglo-Saxons, through 
a period of several centuries, culminating in the time of Alfred the 
Great, had a literature, some of it of a high order. This, though 
nearer to the English than any of the others are, though indeed the 
parent of the English, is not itself English ; it is Anglo-Saxon. The 
Normans, who settled in England in the twelfth century, brought with 
them a noble literature. But it was Norman-French, not English. 
The ecclesiastics of the English Church, from the second century, 
possibly from the first, down to the time of the Eeformation, and even 
a little later, had among them a literature of their own, which is very 
copious, and some of it of a high order. But it is Church-Latin, not 
English. 

A literature is named, not from the soil on which it thrives, but 
from the language in which it is written. As Latin literature is that 
written in the Latin language, as Greek literature is that written in 
the Greek language, so 

English Literature is that written in the English language. 

2* B 17 



18 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

What it Includes. — It includes works written by Americans, as 
"well as those written by Englishmen. It includes the works even of 
foreigners, provided those works are v/ritten in the English language. 

How Divided. — For convenience of treatment, however, the subject 
is divided into two parts. The works in English written in England 
and its dependencies are considered under the head of English Liter- 
ature ; the works in English written in the United States are consid- 
ered under the head of American Literature. 

Point of Beginning. — To fix a precise point when English Litera- 
ture may be said to have begun, we must first ascertain how far back 
the English Language goes. 

Beginning of the Language. — In one sense. Language, being in a 
constant state of transition, has no beginning — none, that is, which 
may be traced to some precise point in historical times. And yet, if 
we follow any language Ixoni its present condition back through suc- 
cessive changes, we find, after a while, that the documents which 
api)ear in it are no longer intelligible to ordinary readers. The stream 
is lost. We are obliged, therefore, for convenience of treatment, to 
assume a point, somewhat arbitrarily, where each language, in its 
present form, may be said to begin. Happily, in the case of the Eng- 
lish language, historical events have defined this point more sharply 
than is the case with most languages. The Saxons in England main- 
tained their language comparatively unimpaired until the coming 
of the Normans, a. d. 1066. For one or two centuries after the com- 
ing of the Normans, a sharp conflict took place, not only between the 
two races, but also between the two languages. The final result was 
a mixed jace and a mixed language — predominantly Saxon, but with 
a large Norman element. 

The mixed language resulting from the Conquest, neither pure 
Saxon, such as Alfred spoke and wrote, still less pure Norman-French, 
such as William and his barons spoke, is our English. 

The Precise Point. — In a change so gradual and continuous as that 
of the transition of a language from its ancient form to its modern 
form, it is not easy, as already stated, to fix a precise point where the 
language ceases to be one, and becomes clearly the other. But, in 
the case of the English, 

The date, A. d. 1200, may be assumed as a convenient dividing line 
between the old language and the new. 

Documents written much earlier than that are either Anglo-Saxon 
or Norman-French, according to the birth and the proclivities of the 
writer ; documents later than that, become soon unmistakably English. 




CHAPTER I. 

Enqlish before Chaucer. 

(1200-1S50.) 

Eecognizing- the language as being English from and after the 
beginning of the thirteenth century, the first author in chronological 
order that claims attention is a Chronicler by the name of Layamon. 

The Brut of Layamon. 

The work of Layamon is called Brut, or more fully, Brutus of Eng- 
land. It is a chronicle of British affairs, from the arrival of Brutus, 
an imaginary son of ^neas of Troy, to the death of King Cadwalader, 
A. D. 689. 

Origin of the Legend. — Among the old Britons there had grown up 
a most extraordinary mass of legends in regard to the early history of 
the race. Tlie great object of patriotic ambition with them seemed to be 
to trace the origin of their race back to ancient Troy. This floating 
mass of traditionary legends had been collected by some Celtic hand, 
and woven, with all possible gravity, into a formal history of Britain, 
tracing its line of monarchs back, in regular succession, to Brutus, an 
imaginary son of ^neas of Troy. Brutus settled in Britain, as ^ueas 
did in Italy. Such was the tradition. 

Geoifrey of Monmouth, — An English monk, Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
translated into Latin this Welsh Chronicle, now lost. Geoffrey called 
his book Historia Britonum, A History of the Britons. As history it 
is worthless. It forms, however, an important link in the history of 
English literature, the materials of a large number of the earliest 
works that exist, both in English and in Norman-French, having 
been drawn from this crude mass of fictions, misnamed history. 

Layamon' s Chronicle. — Layamon's Chronicle, Brutus of England, is 
in the main a translation of a Chronicle of the same name, "Brut 
d'Angleterre," by Wace, a Norman-French poet, who took the story 
from Geoffrey of Monmouth. 

19 



20 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Of Layamon himself we know nothing, except what he himself tells 
us, which is very little. He tells us that he was a priest,. and that he 
resided at Ernley, near Eedstone, in Worcestershire ; and he seems to 
say that he was employed there in the services of the church. 

Date of the Chronicle. — The composition of the Chronicle, Brutus 
of England, has, from internal evidence, been assigned to the beginning 
of the thirteenth century, — not later, probably, than the year 1205. 

Versification of the Chronicle. — The French Chronicle which Lay- 
amon followed was in eight-syllable rhyming couplets. Layamon's 
Brutus sometimes rhymes ; as, 

— Kinges — theines — velde 

— thinges — sweines — scelde. 

Occasionally also it runs into regular octo-syllabics ; as, 

Summe heo gunnen lepen, 
Summe heo driven balles. 

On the whole, it would seem that Layamon, for his versification, either 
followed some system of his own, dependent upon artifices which, at 
this distance, we cannot appreciate, — which, at any rate, we haye not 
yet discovered, — or, which is probable, that he had no system of verse, 
but simply. broke up his matter into short lines, like the original 
which he was translating, and that in so doing, he occasionally 
adopted both its metre and its rhyme. 

Linguistic Value of the Chronicle. — The Linguistic value of Laya- 
mon's Brutus is very great. The Chronicle is considerable in amount, 
numbering 32,250 lines ; and it sh^ws us the condition of the language 
in that interesting and curious transition stage, about midway between 
the ]3ure old Saxon and the established modern English. 

The Ormulum. 

The Ormulum is so called from its author, Orm, as he liimself says, 
in the opening couplet : 

^ This boo is nemmed Ormulum, 
Forthy that Orm it wrote. 

Subject of the Ormulum. — The Ormulum is a series of Homilies, 
the subjects of the homilies being those portions of the New Testament 
appointed to be read in the daily mass service of the church. 

Date of the Ormulum. — The Ormulum was written somewhere in 
the early part of the thirteenth century, a little later than the Brutus 
of Layamon, perhaps about the year 1 220. 



ENGLISH BEFORE CHAUCER. 21 

Diction of the Ormulum. — The Ormulum, like the Brutus of Laya- 
raon, has almost no Norman-French words. It shows the language in 
that state in which the old Saxon inflections are nearly gone, the 
grammatical structure being almost identical with modern English, 
but foreign words have not yet begun to intrude themselves. 

Versification of the Ormulum. — The verse, in the Ormulum, does 
not rhyme, but it is metrical throughout, and consists of couplets, 
arranged in lines alternately of eight syllables and seven syllables. 
Thus: 

I Now brothler Waltier, broth |er min, — 
|\After I the flesh|es kind|e. 

It is a peculiar and not unpleasing form of blank verse. 

The Aneren Ri^Arle. 

The title, Aneren Biwle, means " Anchoresses' Eule," — Aneren 
being the abbreviated form of the old genitive " Ancrena," and Biwle 
being the old spelling for '' Eule." 

Object of the Work. — The Aneren Eiwle is a treatise on the duties 
of the monastic life, written by an ecclesiastic, apparently one in high 
authority, for the direction of three ladies, to whom it is addressed, 
and who, with their domestic servants, or lay sisters, formed the entire 
community of a religious house. 

Date of the Work. — The composition of the Aneren Eiwle is re- 
ferred to the same date as the Ormulum, possibly a little later. The 
year 1225 is given as a probable conjecture. It is interesting as an 
extended specimen of prose of the same period with the two poetical 
works already noticed. 

Robert of Gloucester. 

At the distance of nearly a century from Layamon, is a rhyming 
Chronicler, Eobert of Gloucester. All we know of him is that he was 
a monk of Gloucester Abbey, and. as he alludes to events which oc- 
curred in 1297, he must have written, or at least finished, his Chronicle 
after that date. '^ 

Subject. — Eobert of Gloucester's Chronicle is a versified history of 
British affairs, from the imaginary Brutus of Troy down to the death 
of Henry III., A.d. 1272. 

Its Versification. — This Chronicle is written for the most part in 
Alexandrine metre, or iambic twelve-syllable rhyming couplets. 

Its Diction. — The language shows great advance from the documents 



22 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

previously described, and requires almost no change to be intelligible 
to the modern reader. 

Robert of Brunne. 

At the distance of nearly half a century from Eobert of Gloucester, 
is Robert Manning, generally called, from his birthplace, Eobert of 
Brunne. His Chronicle was finished in the year 1338. 

Further Particulars. — Eobert of Brunne' s Chronicle gives a rhyming 
history of England from Brutus of Troy down to the death of Edward 
I., A. D. 1307. The first part, from Brutus to Cadwalader, A. d. 689, 
is a translation of Wace's Brutus, and is, like it, in eight-syllable 
rhyming couplets. The remaining portion is a translation from a 
contemporary Norman-French chronicle, and is, like the original, in 
Alexandrian, or twelve-syllable rhyming couplets. It shows some 
advance, both in language and in poetical merit, upon its predecessors. 

Metrical Romance. 

The essential feature of the Metrical Eomance was a tale of love 
and adventure, told in verse. 

Origin of the Romance. — Metrical romances were first brought into 
England by the Normans. Works of this kind were immensely pop- 
ular, both in France and England. At length, when the governing 
race in England began to use the language of their adopted country, 
similar romances in English were composed for their amusement. 
These were imitations or translations from the Norman-French, and 
so little did the translators contribute to them of their own invention, 
that the names even of the authors have not come down to us. 

Period of the Metrical Romance. — The Metrical Eomance began 
as early as a.d. 1200, about the time of Layamon's Brutus. It flour- 
ished to some extent during the thirteenth century, but the time of 
its greatest ascendency was in the fourteenth. After A. d. 1400, 
it began to wane, and finally it gave way to the prose romance, and 
then disappeared altogether for more than three hundred years, when 
it was for a time quickened into new life, though in a difierent form, 
by Sir Waker Scott, 

The Most Celebrated. — The names of some of the most celebrated 
of these Eonianees are Sir Tristram, King Horn, Sir Havelock, Sir 
Guy, The Scpiire of Low Degree, King Eobert of Sicily, King Alisan- 
der, The. King of Tars, The Death of Arthur, The Soudan of Damas- 
cus, etc. 




CHAPTER 11. 

Chaucer and his Contemporaries. 

(1330-1400.) 

The fourteentli centuiy is celebrated in English annals by tlie long 
and successful reign of Edward III., and by the military glories of his 
son, Edward the Black Prince, achieved in the famous battles of Crecy 
and Poitiers, in France. 

Civil and Religious Discontents. — Before the close of the century, 
also, serious di^^contents arose among the common people on account 
of the oppressions of the government, and the first distinct protest was 
uttered against the irregularities of the religious orders. In regard 
both to civil and religious liberty, there was a noteworthy struggle, 
and many of the reforms in both, which took effect two centuries 
later, are distinctly traceable to the elforts put forth, and the opinions 
expressed, in this stirring period. 

Writers of the Period. — The fourteenth century has a few names of 
note in the history of English literature. These are Chaucer, Gower, 
Piers Plowman, Wyckliffe, and Sir .John Mandeville. 

Chaucer. 

Geoffrey Chaucer, 1328-1400, is our first great poet, — so incompar- 
ably great, as to all that went before, that he is distinctively called the 
Father of English Poetry. 

Personal History. — The personal history of Chaucer is involved in 
no little obscurity. Neither the place nor the date of his birth is cer- 
tainly known, though an early traditi(m asserts that he was born in 
London, and the probabilities are in favor of the commonly received 
date of 1328, as that of his birth. His writhigs give abundant proof 
that he was liberally educated, and both the great Universities claim 
him. Even on this point, however, there is no certainty, though there 

23 



24 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

is a fair probability in the conjecture that, according to a custorn much 
prevalent at that time, he began his studies in one University and fin- 
ished them in the other, as there is also in the supposition that lie 
spent some time in study abroad at the University of Paris. 

Social Position. — Chaucer evidently belonged to a good family, and 
his connections through life were with people of rank and quality. 
He lived in stirring times, being contemporary with Wyckliffe, John 
of Gaunt, the great Duke of Lancaster, Edward III., the invader of 
France, and his son the Black Prince, the hero of Crecy and Poitiers. 
Chaucer was himself in the army that invaded France, and was taken 
prisoner. He held at different times various offices of honor and 
emolument, and the few authentic records of him that we have show 
that he was on terms of intimacy with the highest nobility in the 
kingdom. 

Marriage. — Chaucer was by marriage closely connected with John 
of Gaunt, who was, for a long time, second only to the King himself, 
and whose son, Henry of Bolingbroke, during Chaucer's life, succeeded 
to the throne under the title of Henry IV. Chaucer's wife was maid 
of honor to the Queen, and Chaucer himself was valet to the King. 

Political and Eeligious Affinities. — Chaucer's writings show him to 
have been in sympathy with Wyckliffe and the Lancastrians, in their 
resistance to the encroachments of the Roman hierarchy. He does 
not indeed enter into the political and religious questions of the 
time as a disputant, but the sketches of character which he gives show 
plainly enough where his sympathies lie. Those who are painted as 
models of excellence, like the Good Parson, belong to the national 
party in the ecclesiastical hierarchy ; while those who are held up to 
ridicule, like the Friar and the Sumpnour, belong to the class whose 
ecclesiastical connection was with Pome rather than with England. 

Chaucer's principal work, The Canterbury Tales, is believed to have 
been written late in life, after the age of sixty, though it is probable 
that one at least of the Tales, and that the longest one in the collection, 
had been written earlier as a separate performance. 

Plan of the Work. — According to the plot^ of this celebrated work, 
the poet represents himself as bent on a pilgrimage to the tomb of 
Tlioraas a Becket, at Canterbury. At the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, 
he meets with nine-and-twenty other pilgrims, all bound on the* same 
errand. To beguile the tedium of the way, they agree that each shall 
tell a tale, both going and returning. • Hence the name, " The Canter- 
bury Tales." 

Structure of the Work. — In his Prologue, which is itself no incon- 
siderable poem, Chaucer describes each of his fellow travellers, and in 



CHAUCER AND HIS COE"TEMPOE ARIES. 25 

these descriptions has given a series of portraits that are unequalled 
of their kind in English literature. . In the art of word-painting, these 
portraits have never heen surpassed. They constitute a picture gal- 
lery, of which the great English race may well be proud, as a monu- 
ment of art which can never decay, and which can never be stolen by 
Vandal invaders. The gay cavalcade having set out, the narration of 
the tales is interspersed with amusing incidents of the journey. Each 
tale is in keeping with the supposed character of the narrator ; and as 
each is taken from some walk in life different from the others, the 
whole together form a moving panorama of life and manners in the 
fourteenth century. Probably of no country in the world, except per- 
haps Arabia and Palestine in the time of the Patriarchs, have we such 
a lively picture as Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales, has given us of 
the England of Wyckliffe and Edward III. 

Gower. 

John Gower, 1320 (?)-1408, the contemporary and friend of Chau- 
cer, was not equal to the latter in genius, or in the influence which he 
exerted on English literature. He was far, however, from lacking 
•either genius or influence, and his name is constantly coupled with 
that of Chaucer in all the earlier authors or writers who have written 
of either. 

Rank as a Poet. — The term "moral," applied to him originally by 
Chaucer, has stuck to Gower ever since, and is supposed to convey the 
idea that he was more concerned for the moral correctness of his writ- 
ings than for their elegance or taste. Certain it is, that he lacks those 
qualities of imagination, fancy, and humor, which mark so strongly 
his great contemporary. 

Besides some smaller poems, Gower wrote three large works. Specu- 
lum Meditantis (The Mirror of Meditation), in French ; Vox Clamantis 
(The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness), in Latin ; and Confessio 
Amantis (The Confessions of a Lover), in English. 

Confossio Amantis. — This, being in English, is the work by which 
Gower is chiefly known. It is of immoderate length, — extending to 
more than 30,000 lines. It was once much read, though few would 
now undertake so formidable a task. 

Piers Plo^A^man. 

Another work of great celebrity and value, belonging to this period 
of our literary history, is one commonly known as Pier,s Plowman. It 
3 



26 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

was completed about the same time as The Canterbury Tales, but is in 
many respects in striking contrast with that great work. 

Piers Plowman is an allegorical and satirical poem, in the form of 
a series of visions, or dissolving views, in which the various characters 
and occupations of men pass under review. 

The Name. — So little is known of the author of this work, that in 
referring to it, or quoting from it, writers more frequently speak of 
Piers Plowman, which is the name commonly given to the poem, than 
of Langland, which was probably the name of the author. The full 
and proper title of this work is, The Vision of William concerning 
Piers the Plowman. 

History of the Author. — William Langland, the author of Piers 
Plowman, appears to have been born about 1332, and to have died 
about the year 1400. He was born in moderate circumstances, but 
was sent to school, and acquired some knowledge of books. He was 
not, however, an accomplished scholar, like Chaucer and Wyckliffe, 
nor did he move like them in the higher circles of social life. He saw 
life rather among the poor and lowly, and is to be accepted as the true 
interpreter of their thoughts and feelings. 

Form of the Poem. — The old Saxon poetry had a form peculiar to 
itself. It was neither metrical, like the classic poetry, nor rhyming, 
like the modern, but was distinguished by a peculiar consonantal allit- 
eration. The lines had no fixed length, but had usually about four- 
teen syllables, and were divided into two distinct parts about the end 
of the eighth syllable ; and the words were so selected and arranged 
that at least two leading words in the first section, and at least one 
word in the second section, began with the same letter. Thus : 
Ac now is religion a rider, || a roaraer about, 
A deader of ^ove-days, || and a ^ond-buyer. 

Sometimes printed thus : 

Ac now is religion a rider, 

A reamer about, 

A deader of /ove-days, 

And a Zond-buyer. 

But in the old manuscript copies, it is always found written in the long 
lines, with a mark of some kind to show the division into sections. 

Wyckliffe. 
Jolm Wyckliffe, 1324-1384, known among Protestants as "The 
Morning Star of the Reformation," may almost be styled also the 
Father of English Prose, as his contemporary, Chaucer, is the Father 



CHAUCEE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 27 

of English Poetry. Wyckliffe was at least one of the earliest writers 
who in plain and vigorous prose addressed the common people in 
words familiar to the hearths and homes of England. 

Wyckliffe wrote many treatises : some learned, addressed to scholars 
and the higher orders, and some in homely phrase, addressed to the 
common people. But his chief literary work was A Translation of 
the Holy Bible. 

The First English Version. — Separate portions of the Holy Scrip- 
tures had been translated into English before this time. But Wyck- 
liffe' s was the first translation of the whole Bible into English. It was 
completed in 1382, and revised in 1388. 

Character of the Version. — Wyckliffe's translation was made directly 
from the Latin Vulgate, not from the original Hebrew and Greek. It 
is extremely literal, and is marked by great homeliness of style, stu- 
diously avoiding the language of scholars and of courtly people. 

Influence. — Wyckliffe's Version was much used in his own day, and 
for ^ some generations following, and it had great influence both upon 
English speech and religious opinions. Moreover, the movement which 
it inaugurated led finally, in a later day, to the formation of the Ver- 
sion now in common use. 

Mandeville. 

Sir John Mandeville, 1300-1372, is the earliest notable instance of 
the genuine English Traveller, " The Bruce of the fourteenth century." 

His Travels. — Mandeville left home at the age of twenty-seven, and 
travelled for thirty-four years, going first to Jerusalem, and then on 
eastward into the remotest parts of Asia. On returning, he wrote a 
book describing some of the marvellous things that he had seen. 

His Book. — This book of Voyage and Travel was written by him 
at first in Latin, then in French, then in English. It was translated 
into Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and German. Books of travel were not 
so common then as they are now, and this work of Mandeville's, giving 
an account by an eye-witness of remote regions and nations, the very 
existence of which was almost unknown among the people of Europe, 
was read with the greatest avidity. With the credulity of the age, he 
embodied in his work every grandam tale that came in his way ; yet, 
on the whole, he is worthy of credit when describing what came under 
his own observation. It is not uncommon to find him in one page giving 
a sensible account of something which he saw, and in the next repeat- 
ing with equal seriousness the story of Gog and Magog, and of men 
with tails, or the account of the Madagascar bird which could carry 
elephants through the air. The work is interesting as one of the 
earliest specimens of English prose. 




CHAPTER III. 

Early Scotch Poets. 

(1400-1B00.) 

Feom the time of Chaucer, for a period of nearly two centuries, the 
succession of minstrels and poets seems to have been limited to the 
northern part of the island, nearly all the poetical writers of any note 
in this period being Scotchmen. 

These early Scotch poets are Barbour, Wyntoun, James I. of Scot- 
land, Blind Harry, Henryson, Dunbar, Gawin Douglas, and Lindsay. 

Barbour. 

John Barbour, 1320 (?)-1396, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, and a con- 
temporary of Chaucer's, was a poet of considerable note. 

Barbour wrote two extended poems, The Brute, a metrical chron- 
icle, tracing the Scottish kings back to Brutus of Troy, and llie Bruce, 
recounting the warlike deeds of the Scottish hero, Bobert Bruce. 

-Character of The Bruce. — Barbour calls The Bruce a Eomaunt. By 
this we are not to understand that the work is a fiction, but that the 
deeds of the hero are in themselves romantic. Barbour's work, though 
in verse, is an important historical document, being a metrical chron- 
icle of the great Scottish hero, written soon after his death, and while 
the facts were still fresh in the minds of all. It is indeed a complete 
history of the memorable transactions by which Eobert I. asserted the 
independence of Scotland ; at the same time, it has no little of poetic 
fire and of rhythmical harmony. The poem consists of more than 
12,500 lines, of which more than 2,000 are occupied with the battle 
of Bannockburn. 

Wyntoun. 

Andrew W3mtoun, 1350 (?)-1430 (?), Prior of St. Serf's, Lochleven, 
wrote a Chronicle of Scotland. 

28 



EARLY SCOTCH POETS. 29 

Character of the Chronicle. — Wyntoun's Chronicle, more ambitious 
than those founded upon the Brutus of Trcv, gives the story of the 
Scotch kings, in regular descent, from the birth of Cain! It is in 
eight-syllable rhyrhing couplets. Though far inferior to the Bruce of 
Barbour, it is not without its value, both as a specimen of the language, 
and as a representative of ancient manners and ideas. The later por- 
tions of the Chronicle also are of considerable value as an historical 
record. 

James I. of Scotland. 

James I. of Scotland, 1395-1437, was a poet of no little worth and 
consideration, and was the first of the Scottish poets whose writings 
show signs of the influence of Chaucer. 

James was the author of The King's Quhair [Quire or Book], and 
perhaps also of some other poems, the authorship of which is disputed. 

History of James. — James, while yet a boy of ten, was taken captive 
by the English monarch, and kept for nineteen years in captivity in 
England. He was there instructed in all the polite learning and ac- 
complishments of the age, and appears to have been particularly con- 
versant with the writings of Chaucer. While living in Windsor Castle, 
a prisoner of state, he met with a characteristic incident, which is the 
subject of his chief poem, already named. The royal prisoner, now in 
the prime of manhood, glowing with honorable sentiments, and ex- 
cluded from the means of giving them expression, sees from his palace- 
prison a fair and noble lady walking in the adjacent garden. He 
becomes enamored of the lady, and writes the poem in her honor! 

James's End. ^ This graceful'and polished monarch was suited to a 
more advanced stage of civilization than that which prevailed in Scot- 
land in the fifteenth century. Though not lacking in strength or 
courage, he was unequal to the task of curbing those fierce Scottish 
nobles, by a party of whom he was finally assassinated in 1437, at the 
age of forty-two. When the assassins were trying to break into his 
apartments, a staple or bar being wanted to fasten the door, Catherine 
. Douglas, a lady attendant upon the queen, thrust her arm into the 
bolt-hole, and so kept it, until the limb was entirely crushed by the 
bloody miscreants. The queen herself rushed between them and the 
object of their vengeance, vainly endeavoring to receive upon her own 
person the multiplied wounds that were inflicted upon his. Such was 
the end of the ill-fated James. He was a true poet and a true man. 
He deserved well of woman's love, and he was rewarded with a true 
and heroic constancy. 
3* 



30 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Blind Harry. 

Henry the Minstrel, or Blind Harry, a wandering Scotcli minstrel, 
was the author of a poem called Sir William Wallace, in twelve books, 
supposed to have been written about the year 1470. 

Character. — As a poet. Blind Harry cannot be rated very high, and 
his Wallace was supposed at one time to be untrustworthy in its nar- 
rative ; but recent investigations have shown that its author must have 
been in possession of valuable authentic materials. Many incidents 
unknown to other Scottish authors are corroborated by English an- 
nalists and by records published only recently. 

Henryson. 

Robert Henryson was an early Scottish poet of some celebrity, of 
whose personal history little is known except that he was schoolmaster 
at Dunfermline, and that he died before 1508. 

Henryson's Works. — Henryson wrote The Testament of Fair Cre- 
seide, as a sequel to Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide ; and a translation 
of iEsop's Fables, One of these fables, The Town Mouse and the 
Country Mouse, is often referred to for its humor and spirit. 

Dunbar. 

William Dunbar, 1465-1530, is the most illustrious of Scotch poets, 
except Scott and Burns. Prof. Craik calls Dunbar " The Chaucer of 
Scotland," and Sir Walter Scott pronounces him to be, without excep- 
tion, '' a poet unrivalled by any that Scotland has ever produced." 

Dunbar's History. — Dunbar was educated at the University of St. 
Andrew's, and became a friar of the Franciscan Order. In this capac- 
ity he spent several years as a travelling preacher, living on the alms 
of the pious, through Scotland, England, and France. He was also 
employed on various occasions in conducting negotiations for King 
James IV. with foreign courts, and in this capacity he visited Germany, 
Spain, and Italy, as well as France and England. By these means he 
acquired a knowledge of men and of affairs which aided him in the 
composition of his works. 

His Works. — Dunbar was master of almost every kind of verse. His 
poems are divided into three classes: The Allegorical, the Moral, and 
the Comic. His chief allegorical poem is The Dance of the Seven 
Deadly Sins through Hell. One of the best specimens of his Moral 
pieces is The Merle and the Nightingale, in which these two rival 
songsters debate in alternate stanzas the merits of Earthly and Heav- 



EARLY SCOTCH POETS. 31 

enly Love. Of the Comic pieces, the most famous is The Souter and 
the Tailor, an imaginary tournament between a shoemaker and a tailor, 
in the same region where the Seven Deadly Sins held their dance. 

Gav/in Douglas. 

Gawin Douglas, 1475-1522, Bishop of Dunkeld, has the special honor 
of being the first to translate into English verse any ancient classic, 
Greek or Latin. 

Douglas translated Virgil's ^Eneid in an elegant and scholarly man- 
ner, and wrote several original poems possessing considerable merit. 

History. — Gawin, or Gavin, Douglas was son of Archibald, fifth 
Earl of Angus, surnamed Bell-the-Cat. Unlike most of the members 
of that fierce and haughty family, Gawin was trained to letters instead 
of arms. He studied at the University of Paris, entered the church, 
and rose to the bishopric. He was noted in that rude age for his re- 
finement and scholarly tastes. 

Sir Walter Scott, in one of the most striking scenes in Marmion, has 
drawn a beautiful picture of Gawin Douglas. It is the celebrated mid- 
night scene in the chapel of Tantallon Tower : 

"A Bishop by the altar stood, 
A noble lord of Douglas blood, 
With mitre sheen, and rocquet white. 
Yet showed his meek and thoughtful eye 
But little pride of prelacy ; 
More pleased that, in a barbarous age, 
He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page, 
Than that beneath his rule he held 
The bishopric of fair Dunkeld. 
Beside him ancient Angus stood, 
Doffed his furred gown, and sable hood; 
O'er his huge form, and visage pale, 
V He wore a cap and shirt of mail ; 

And leaned his large and wrinkled hand 
Upon the huge and sweeping brand 
Which wont of yore, in battle fray, 
His foeman's limbs to shred away, 
As wood-knife lops the sapling spray. 
He seemed as, from the tombs around, 

Rising at judgment-day. 
Some giant Douglas may be found 

In all his old array ; 
So pale his face, so huge his limb, 
So old his arms, his look so grim." 



32 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Lindsay. 

Sir David Lindsay, 1490-1555, a satiric poet, and a fit successor to 
Dunbar and Gawin Douglas, closes the line of early Scotch poets. 

History. — Lindsay's personal history, as well as his poetry, is inti- 
mately mingled with the affairs of the Scottish Court, and particularly 
with those of his sovereign, James V. While James was a boy, Lind- 
say was his attendant, carver, cup-bearer, purse-master, chief-cubicular, 
in short his man Friday, bearing the little fellow on his back, and 
dancing antics for his amusement. James, on coming to the throne, did 
not forget the poet, but gave him the valuable office of King-at-arms. 

His Poetry. — Lindsay's poems are entirely satirical, and have many 
of the characteristics of Dunbar's satires. Like Dunbar, Lindsay was 
vituperative and wanting in refinement, yet bold, vigorous, and biting. 
The chief objects of his satire were the clergy, whom he lashed with- 
out mercy. One of his pieces. The Play of the Three Estates, is a 
pungent satire upon the three great political orders — monarch, 
barons, and clergy. Strange to say, it was acted before the Court. 





CHAPTER IV. 

The Age before Spenser. 

(1500-1SS0.) 

The authors brought together in the present Chapter are in the 
main connected with the long and memorable reign of Henry YIII., 
1509-1547, or the first half of the sixteenth century. 

This period is known in general history as the age of the Refor- 
mation. The great names most conspicuously associated with it are 
Henry VIII., Francis I., Charles V., Leo X., Michael Angelo, Eaphael, 
Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Wolsey, More, and Cranmer. 

The Art of Printing. — The invention of the art of printing, about 
the middle of the fifteenth century, gave a new impulse to authorship, 
as to every other art and enterprise. 

Eifect of Printing on Authorship. — The writings of Chaucer, Wyck- 
lifFe, and other early authors, were in a certain sense published among 
their contemporaries. That is, copies of these works were made and cir- 
culated in manuscript by friends and admirers, and were read to select 
circles in the halls of the nobility and the gentry, at stalls in churches 
and monasteries, at fairs and other public places, or by stealth at the 
private meetings of guilds and sectaries. To such an extent a book 
was published. But publication, in the sense of the Avord now under- 
stood, was first made possible by the invention of the art of printing, 
and it has added enormously to the growth of authorship. So great 
has been the effect of this and of other causes upon the matter of 
authorship, that more works are now produced in English in a single 
year than all that existed in the language from the earliest times down 
to the time of the invention of the art of printing. The few authors 
and works enumerated in the preceding chapters include all of any 
vahie down to the time of Caxton, the first English printer. From his 
time, books grew apace. 

C 33 



34 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

Caxton. 

William Caxton, 1412-1492, the first English printer, like all the 
early printers, was himself a man of learning, and wrote many of the 
works which he printed. Most of them were translations. 

Sir Thomas More. 

Sir Thomas More, 1480-1535, Lord High Chancellor of England, 
■was, next to Erasmus and Cardinal Wolsey, the most conspicuous and 
shining character in the reign of Henry VIII. He was a man of 
wonderful versatility as well as force of genius, being equally distin- 
guished as a statesman, a man of lively wit, a scholar, and a devout 
Christian. 

Works. — More wrote many works, mostly of a controversial kind. 
The only work by which he is now known is The Utopia. 

The Utopia. - This word, derived from the Greek ov (not) and rdrraj 
(place), and meaning literally " Nowhere,'* is the name given by Sir 
Thomas More to an imaginary island which he feigns to have been 
discovered by one of the companions of Amerigo Vespucci. This 
island is made the scene of Sir Thomas's famous political romance. 
Here he pictures a commonwealth in which all the laws and all the 
customs of society are wise and good. 

Skelton. 

John Skelton, 1460-1529, was a poet of some note in the early part 
of the reign of Henry VIII. Erasmus styled him " the light and orna- 
ment of English letters." 

Although this encomium is plainly undeserved, it yet shows that 
Skelton must have had abilities above the common order. 

History. — Skelton studied at Cambridge, and afterwards took 
orders in the Church. He was made poet-laureate, but wore the crown 
with little pretension to dignity or grace. He had much reputation 
for learning and wit, and was tutor to the young Duke of York, after- 
wards Henry VIII. His works are not very numerous, and to a 
modern reader not very attractive. The chief of them are A Dirge 
on Philip Sparrow, and Why Come Ye Not to Court, the latter a 
satire on Cardinal Wolsey. 

Latimer. 

Hugh Latimer, 1472-1555, a Bishop of tlie English Church in the 
time of Ilenry VIIL, was celebrated beyond all the English Ee- 
formers for his pulpit eloquence. 



THE AGE BEFOEE SPENSEE. 35 

Latimer's Sermons have been published in 2 vols., 8vo. They are 
remarkable for a familiarity and drollery of style, which would hardly 
be tolerated in polite congregations now, though it was very popular, 
and produced a powerful impression then. 

Wyatt. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1503-1542, was an accomplished diplomatist 
and statesman in the reign of Henry VIII. Wyatt is also favorably 
known as a poet. 

His Career. — Wyatt entered Cambridge at a very early age, was 
graduated, and, through strong family influence, rose high in Court 
favor under Henry VIII. During the stormy time between the out- 
break of the Reformation and the peace of Augsburg, Wyatt was am- 
bassador for two years at the Court of Charles V. of Germany. Once 
or twice under a cloud, he finally died high in the King's favor. 

His Poetry. — Wyatt, like so many of the statesmen of that day, 
also cultivated the muses. He was an accomplished cavalier and a 
writer of verses after the approved fashion. He is generally classed 
with Surrey, and their poems have often been published in the same 
volume. Wyatt's love-poetry is tender and graceful, but somewhat 
spoiled by the conceits of his Italian models. His satires are more 
idiomatic and more spirited. 

Surrey. 

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 1516-1547, one of the brilliant 
ornaments of the reign of Henry VIII., is distinguished in letters by 
his Sonnets and Songs, and especially by his being the first writer of 
Blank Verse in English. 

His Career. — Surrey studied at Oxford; in 1535 he married Lady 
Frances Vere ; he served in the wars of Henry VIII. against France ; 
fell into disfavor, and, in 1547, was beheaded upon the absurd charge 
of high treason. 

His Poetry. — Surrey was the composer of a number of songs and 
sonnets, which have appeared in many editions. His sonnets are 
mostly dedicated to ''The Fair Geraldine," the daughter of Gerald 
Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare. Besides these original poems, Surrey 
translated the first and fourth books of Virgil in " strange metre." 
This "strange metre" is blank verse, — its first appearance in Eng- 
lish literature. 



36 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



Tusser. 

Thomas Tusser, 1523-1580, is one of the earliest English didactic 
poets. 

Tusser was born at Eivenhall, Essex, and " was successively musi- 
cian, schoolmaster, serving -man, husbandman, grazier, poet, more 
skilful in all than thriving in any vocation," Fuller. He wrote A 
Hundred Good Points of Husbandry, being a practical treatise^ in 
rhyme, on farming. 





CHAPTER V. 

Spenser, Shakespeare, and Bacon, and their 
Contemporaries. 

(1B80-162S.) 

The writers who are brought together in the prcvsent Chapter flour- 
ished during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., or from 1550 to 
1625. They have been arranged into three Sections, under the heads 
severally of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Bacon. 

Spenser, Shakespeare, and Bacon were to some extent contemporary. 
Yet there was in each case a perceptible interval of at least fifteen 
years. Spenser was at his meridian about 1595, Shakespeare about 
1610, and Bacon about 1625. A still greater separation was produced 
by their difierent associations and habits of living. The dramatists 
of that day formed, to a great extent, a class by themselves, living 
mostly at taverns, and having little social intercourse with those in 
the higher circles. Spenser, on the other hand, and other poets of his 
class, were mostly connected with the higher orders, either as members 
or as retainers of some noble family, and were under influences very 
difierent from those which prevailed among the dramatists. 

The period included in this Chapter is known in history as the 
secondary stage of the Reformation. Among the great events of the 
period are the Spanish Armada, and the rise of the Dutch Eepublic. 
Among its great names are Elizabeth, and her two leading counsellors, 
Cecil and Walsingham, Mary Queen of Scots, Philip II. of Spain, the 
Dukes of Alva and Parma, Henry of Navarre, Conde, Coligny, and 
William the Silent. 

I. SPENSER AND CONTEMPORARY POETS. 

The authors described in this Section are in the main associated 
with the time of the poet Spenser, and with the reign of Queen Eliz- 
abeth, 1558-1603, or the latter half of the sixteenth century. 
4 37 



38 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

Spenser. 

Edmund Spenser, 1553-1599, is the next great name in English 
literature after that of Chaucer. His principal work, The Fairy 
Queen, is one of the chief treasures of the language. This poem adds 
an undying lustre to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is of itself suf- 
ficient to make any age famous. 

Early Career. — Spenser was born in London, in humble circum- 
stances. He was educated at Cambridge. After leavmg the Univer- 
sity in 1576, at the age of twenty-three, he spent two years in the north 
of England. At the end of that time, he returned to London, and 
published in 1579 his first volume, The Shepherd's Calendar. This 
is a pastoral poem, in twelve eclogues, modelled to some extent after 
the eclogues of Virgil. 

Connection with Sidney and Leicester. — About this time Spenser 
made the acquaintance of Sir Philip Sidney, and of Sidney's uncle, 
the powerful Earl of Leicester, and thenceforward the fortunes of the 
poet are mixed up a good deal with the affairs of that illustrious family. 
Through this source he obtained, in 1580, the appointment of secretary 
to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and some grants in connection with 
it of considerable pecuniary value. In 1586, he received from the 
Crown, through the interposition, it is supposed, of Sir Philip Sidney, 
a grant of three thousand acres of land in Ireland, being part of the 
forfeited estates of the Earl of Desmond. 

Connection with Ealeigh. — While Spenser was living at Kilcolman 
Castle, on his Irish estates, he received a visit from Sir Walter Raleigh, 
who had obtained from the Crown ten thousand acres of the same for- 
feited estates. During this visit, Spenser read to Raleigh so much of 
the Fairy Queen as was then written, namely, the first three books. 
By the advice of Raleigh, Spenser went forthwith to London, and 
published these three books, in the beginning of 1590. The reception 
of the work was enthusiastic. It was peculiarly adapted to the stately 
solemnities of the age and court of Queen Elizabeth, and it brought 
the author not only immediate fame, but a substantial pension from 
the Queen. 

His Misfortunes and Death. — Tlie Englishmen, Raleigh, Spenser, 
and others, who had been put in possession of the forfeited estates of 
the Irish rebels, were necessarily odious to the Irish peasantry. This 
irritation became at length so great, that in 1598 it broke out into 
open insurrection. The insurgents attacked Kilcolman Castle, plun- 
dered, and set fire to it. Spenser and his wife escaped, but a new-born 
infant perished in the flames. He took refuge in London, and there, 



SPENSER AND CONTEMPORARY POETS. 39 

after a few months of painful anxiety, died, at tlie age of forty-five. 
He was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Plan of the Fairy Queen. — Spenser's chief work, The Fairy Queen, 
was left unfinished. His plan contemplated twelve Books, each Book 
composed of twelve Cantos. Only six Books were completed. The 
poem is of the allegorical kind. Each book has a story and a hero 
of its own, with a series of connected adventures, all intended to illus- 
trate some one great moral virtue. Besides the heroes and heroines 
of the several books, there is one superior hero. Prince Arthur, who 
intervenes in each book, to rescue its particular hero in his extremity. 
This common hero represents Magnificence, or the embodiment of all 
human excellence, and is in the end to be united to the Queen, Glo- 
riana ; in other words, heroism is to be glorified. 

Character of his Poetry. — As a scene-painter, Spenser is unrivalled. 
No poem in tlie language, no poem probably in any language, equals 
the Fairy Queen in the number, variety, and gorgeous splendor of its 
scenes. The author's power of invention seems exhaustless, and he 
fairly revels in the never-ending pictures of bewildering enchantment 
which come at his bidding. From the very luxuriance of his imagi- 
nation, however, he often forgets himself, and loses the thread of his 
story ; and he lacks the exactness of thought which marks the work 
of that other great prince of dreamers, John Bunyan. 

His Versification. — As a versifier, Spenser is wonderful for the 
freedom, variety, and sweetness of his rhythms. His words come 
pouring forth in an endless tide of song. His marvellous facility in 
versifying, however, made him careless; and he lacks accordingly 
something of that perfect finish in his rhythms which is to be found 
in some other masters of song. The stanza used in the Fairy Queen 
is one invented by the author, and is known as the Spenserian Stanza. 
This stanza has been much used by later poets, particularly by Byron. 

Sidney. 

Sir Piiilip Sidney, 1554-1586, was one of the special ornaments of 
the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was possessed by nature, not only 
of high talents, but of a certain nobleness of disposition which made 
him the object of almost universal admiration. 

His Education. — Sidney's education was ordered with the greatest 
care ; and being connected by birth and alliance with the most distin- 
guished families in the kingdom, he had no lack of opportunities for 
displaying his extraordinary abilities to the best advantage. He at- 
tended for a time at Oxford, and then at Cambridge, and afterwards 
went abroad for the purpose of study, in connection with travel, 



40 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The Arcadia. — The Arcadia is a sort of philosophical romance. It 
was for a time almost universally popular, but has since fallen into 
general neglect. 

The Defence of Poesie. — The other principal prose work of Sidney 
is The Defence of Poesie. It has received the commendation of the 
highest critics, and is still occasionally read. Though written in a 
style now antiquated, it is in some respects to this day the best argu- 
ment extant on the subject of which it treats. 

Military Career. — Sidney's great ambition was to be distinguished 
as a soldier. He obtained a command in the war then going on in 
Holland, but his career was brought to a speedy termination. He was 
mortally wounded in the battle of Zutphen, and after lingering for a 
few days, died in the arms of his wife, October 7, 1586, in the thirty- 
third year of his age. 

His Character. — Sidney was the intimate friend and patron of 
Spenser, and in his character and life was the actual embodiment of 
thi; great poet's ideal. The extraordinary hold which he had upon 
the minds of his contemporaries can be accounted for only by suppos- 
ing him to have been gifted to an unusual degree with those ennobling 
qualities which Spenser has shadowed forth in Sir Calidore, or The 
Legend of Courtesy. Sidney was indeed distinguished even as an 
author: but his main distinction grew out of his character as a 
man ; — as one who could be a graceful courtier without duplicity, a 
man of fashion without frivolity, a warrior and a hero without loss of 
rank in the Court of the Muses ; one who was successful in almost 
every walk of honorable enterprise without incurring the envy or the 
reproach of his competitors ; one, in whom the most ordinary affairs of 
life became invested, in the eyes of his countrymen, with some peculiar 
fitness — whose every sentiment was a melody — whose every act was 
rhythmical — whose whole life indeed was one continued poem. ." He 
trod from his cradle to his grave amid incense and flowers, and he died 
in a dream of glory." 

Raleigh. 

Sir Walter Ealeigh, 1552-1618, is famous as a courtier, an adven- 
turer, and a writer. 

Early Career. — Ealeigh was born in Devonshire, studied at Oxford, 
served as a volunteer in France and the Netherlands on the Huguenot 
side for a number of years, and afterwards in Ireland, during Des- 
mond's rebellion. He attracted the attention of Queen Elizabeth, as 
tradition has it, by laying down his cloak as an impromptu carpet for 



SPENSER AND CONTEMPORARY POETS. 41 

her majesty over a muddy place. Be this as it may, Ealeigh became 
one of the royal favorites, was knighted, and appointed to various high 
and lucrative offices in the kingdom. 

How Regarded by his Contemporaries. — He was looked upon as the 
flower of courtesy in an age when court life was the prominent phase 
of English society ; he was, for the times, an accomplished scholar, a 
bold adventurer, a lover of the muses, and a friend of the poet Spenser, 
who honored him with one of his sweetest sonnets. Ealeigh is thus 
the type of the England of the sixteenth century, -^ bold, hasty, gal- 
lant, not over-scrupulous in the choice of means, but genial in mamiers, 
and, with all its faults, full of life and character. 

Literary Merits. — Ealeigh just fell short of becoming a fine lyric 
poet. His greatest work is one in prose. The History of the World, 
which, however, is brought down only to the end of the Macedonian 
Empire. Although, of course, superseded in matters of fact by later 
works, it is regarded as a model of style, and the pioneer of the great 
English school of historical writers. 

Saekville. 

Thomas Saekville, 1536-1608, Earl of Dorset, and Lord High 
Treasurer of England, was a man of note in letters, as well as in affairs 
of state. 

The Mirrour for Magistrates. — In 1557, Saekville formed the design 
of a poem, entitled The Mirrour for Magistrates, of which he wrote 
only The Induction, and one Legend, that on the life of Henry Staf- 
ford, Duke of Buckingham. 

Plan of the Poem. — In imitation of Dante and some others of his 
predecessors, Saekville lays the scene of his poem in the infernal re- 
gions, to which he descends under the guidance of an allegorical per- 
sonage named Sorrow. It was his object to make all the great persons 
of English history, from the Conquest downwards, pass here in review, 
and each tell his own story, as a warning to existing statesmen. 

South"well. 

Eobert Southwell, 1560-1595, one of the minor poets of the time of 
Elizabeth, is remembered with melancholy interest on account of his 
tragical end. 

Career. — Southwell was born of Catholic parents, who sent him, 

when very young, to be educated at the English college at Douay, and 

from thence to Eome, where, at the age of sixteen, he entered the 

Society of the Jesuits. At the age of twenty-four he returned to his 

4* 



42 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

native country as a missionary, notwitlistanding a law whicli threat- 
ened with death all members of his profession who should be found in 
England. In 1592, he was apprehended in a gentleman's house, and 
committed to a dungeon in the Tower. After an imprisonment of three 
years, he was executed at Tyburn, with all the revolting circumstances 
of cruelty characteristic of the old treason law of England. Through- 
out these scenes, Southwell is said to have behaved with a mild forti- 
tude, which was the strongest commentary on his purity of character. 
The life of Southwell was short, but fall of grief; and the prevailing 
tone of his poetry is that of religious resignation. 

His Poetry, — Southwell's two longest poems, St. Peter's Complaint, 
and Mary Magdalene's Tears, were written in prison. Though com- 
posed while he was suiFering cruel persecution, no trace of angry 
feeling occurs in them against any human being or institution. South- 
well's poems were for a time exceedingly popular ; after that> they fell 
for a long time into neglect. They have risen again in public esti- 
mation in the present day, a new and complete edition of them having 
appeared in 1856, 

Daniel. 

Samuel Daniel, 1562-1619, figured as a lyric poet, a dramatist, and 
a historian. 

Daniel was educated at Oxford, and became tutor to the Countess of 
Pembroke. He was associated in London with Shakespeare, Marlowe, 
Chapman, and- others of that class, and towards the close of his life 
retired to a small farm in the country. He wrote many poems, and 
was in great favor among his contemporaries. 

Drayton. 

Michael Drayton, 1563-1631, was a voluminous poet of much celeb- 
rity in his time, though now little read. 

Chief Work. — Drayton's chief work was the Poly-Olbion, in thirty 
Songs or Cantos, and making 30,000 Alexandrian lines, rhyming in 
couplets. It is a topographical description of all the tracts, rivers, 
mountains, and forests of Great Britain, intermixed with local tradi- 
tions and antiquities. In other words, it is the antiquities of Britain, 
expressed in verse. As a book of antiquities, it is said to be remarkable 
for its accuracy and for the minuteness of its information, and it is not 
devoid of poetry. 

Edward Fairfax, 1632, is well known as the translator of 

Tasso. 



SHAKESPEARE AND EARLY DRAMATISTS. 43 

Giles and Phineas Fletcher. 

Giles Fletcher, 1588-1623, and Phineas Fletcher, 1584-1650, broth- 
ers, were poets of a kindred stamp, and were much alike in their 
characters and pursuits. 

Both were educated at Eton and Cambridge ; both were clergymen ; 
both are in good estimation for poetry of a quiet, but pure and ele- 
vating character. 

They were cousins of John Fletcher, the Dramatist, the associate of 
Beaumont. 

Giles Fletcher's chief poem is entitled Christ's Victory and Triumph 
in Heaven and Earth over and after Death. The description which 
he gives of the first meeting between Christ and the Tempter is sup- 
posed to have suggested to Milton some of the scenes in his Paradise 
Regained. 

Phineas Fletcher's chief work was The Purple Island. This was 
an allegorical poem, after the style of Spenser, the "Island" being 
the human body, its streams being the veins and arteries, and the 
moral and mental faculties of the soul being the actors or heroes. 

Herbert. 

George Herbert, 1593-1632, a thoughtful and quiet poet of this 
period, was the author of two poems, The Temple, and The Country 
Parson, which have given him a permanent place in literature. 

Herbert was of a noble family, being a younger brother of Lord 
Edward Herbert of Cherbury ; was educated at Westminster School 
and at Cambridge, and took orders in the Church of England. He 
seems to have led the quiet, retired life of a country divine, and to 
have been governed by a spirit of unaffected piety. 

II. SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARLY DRAMATISTS. 

Rise of the English Drama. 

Miracle Plays. — At the dawn of modern civilization, most Euro- 
pean countries had a rude kind of theatrical entertainment, known as 
Miracle Plays, or Miracles. These plays were representations of the 
principal supernatural events of the Old and New Testaments, and of 
the lives of the saints. 

The Miracle Plays did not undertake to exhibit natural characters 
and incidents, like the classic dramas of Greece and Rome, but to set 
forth Scriptural and religious transactions. In the absence of print- 



44 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ing, they were one means of making known some of the contents of 
the Scriptures, and they were thought to be favorable to tlie diffusion 
of religious feeling. They were under the management of the clergy, 
and were acted by men of the clerical order. They were generally 
acted in church, and often on Sunday. Traces of these Miracle Plays 
in England may be found as far back as the Norman Conquest, in the 
twelfth century ; possibly a little earlier. 

Moral Plays. — The Miracle Plays were succeeded by a somewhat 
higher sort of drama, called Moral Plays, or Moralities. In the Moral 
Plays persons were introduced representing abstract ideas and moral 
sentiments, such as Mercy, Justice, Truth, and so on. The only 
Scriptural character retained in them is the Devil, who is represented 
in grotesque habiliments, and who is perpetually beaten by an at- 
tendant character, called The Vice. The Moral Plays at first were 
acted by clergymen, or by school-boys, and sometimes by members of 
guilds and trading corporations. Acting had not yet become a distinct 
profession. The Moral Plays were introduced about the time of Henry 
VI., say the middle of the fifteenth century, and were continued into the 
reign of Henry VIII., or nearly to the middle of the sixteenth century. 

Interludes. — The next step in the development of the drama was a 
kind of plays called Interludes. The Interludes were a species of 
farce. They were introduced in the time of Henry VIIL, at which 
time also acting began to be a distinct profession. In the Interludes, 
allegorical characters and abstractions also began to give way to 
characters taken from real life. 

The Regular Drama. — The regular drama began in England near 
the close of the reign of Henry VIIL, and about the middle of the 
sixteenth century. 

The regular dramas, though growing out of the theatrical entertain- 
ments which had preceded, were formed after the old classical models, 
and also after those of Spain and Italy, all of which had now begun to 
be studied by dramatic writers in England. The regular dramas were 
from the first divided into Comedies and Tragedies, and were in five 
acts. 

The first regular Comedy of which we have any record was Ealph 
Eoyster Doyster. It was written by Nicholas Udall, Master of West- 
minster School, about the year 1551. The scene is in London, and 
the characters, thirteen in number, represent the manners of the middle 
orders of the people of that day. 

Another early Comedy, called Misogonus, was written about 1560, 
by Thomas Richards. The scene is laid in Italy, but the manners 
are English. The character of the domestic Fool, which figures so 
largely in the old Comedy, appears for the first time in this play. 



SHAKESPEARE AND EARLY DRAMATISTS. 45 

The comedy of Gammer Gurton's Xeedle was written about 1565, 
bv John Still, afterward3 Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and 
Bishop of Bath and Wells. It is a piece of low rustic humor, turning 
upon the loss and recovery of the needle with which Gammer (god- 
mother, or granny) Gurton was mending a garment belonging to her 
man Hodge. 

The earliest known Tragedy in English was Ferrex and Porrex. 
It was written by Thomas Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset, and 
was played before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, by members of the 
Inner Temple, in 1561. It is founded on early British story, and is 
full of blood and civil broils. 

The first English tragedy founded on a classical subject was Damon 
and Pythias. It was acted before Queen Elizabeth, at Oxford, in 1566. 

Eapid Growth of the Drama. — From the time of the regular plays 
just named, the drama may be considered as one of the established 
forms of English literature. Once established, its growth was rapid. 
Before the close of Elizabeth's reign it had attained a height and 
splendor which threw into the shade all other kinds of literary work. 
Even the Fairy Queen paled before the rising sun of the new Eliza- 
bethan Drama. 

Shakespeare, the greatest of English dramatists, rose from these 
humble beginnings at once into meridian splendor. Some few stars, 
however, are discernible in the early dawn preceding Shakespeare's 
rise. These will now be briefly noticed. 

John Lttly, 1553-1600, a dramatic writer of some note, was the 
author of nine plays, written mostly for Court entertainments, and 
performed by the scholars of St. Paul's. One of Lyly's works, 
Euphues, or The Anatomy of Wit, exercised a most mischievous influ- 
ence upon the literature of the day, causing that general use of euphu- 
istic expressions which marks most of the writings of his contempo- 
raries and immediate successors. 

Egbert Greene, 1560-1592, was one of the minor dramatists con- 
temporary with Shakespeare. 

Greene was educated at Cambridge, and took orders in the church, 
but lost his preferment, probably on account of the irregularities of 
his life. Besides his plays, Greene wrote a large number of tales and 
• other prose pieces, some licentious and indecent, others full of repen- 
tance for his own misdeeds and serious exhortations to his fellows to 
avoid his example. One of his tracts, A Groat's Worth of Wit Bought 
with a Million of Bepentance, is often quoted for the light which it 
throws upon contemporary literature. 



46 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

George Peele, 1553-1598, after completing his studies at Oxford, 
came to London and became a writer and actor of plays, and a share- 
holder with Shakespeare and others in the Blackfriars Theatre. Peele 
also held the situation of city poet and conductor of pageants for the 
Court. 

Marlowe. 

Christopher Marlowe, 1562-1593, was the greatest of the precursors 
of Shakespeare. 

Marlowe was the son of a shoemaker in Canterbury. He received, 
however, a learned education, and was graduated at Cambridge. 

Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, was written before his 
graduation. It was the first English play in blank verse, and the ver- 
sification has a peculiar majestic swell and sonorousness, which, though 
verging upon bombast, yet suggested and justified Ben Jonson's phrase 
of " Marlowe's mighty line." 

Marlowe's second play. The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, ex- 
hibits a far wider and higher range of dramatic power than his first 
tragedy. The subject is the same as that of Goethe's most celebrated 
work, and many of the characters, Faust, Mephistopheles, Wagner, etc., 
appear in both works. 

Marlowe lived an irregular life, and died young, being killed in a 
miserable brawl. He was a man of uncommon genius, and was 
undoubtedly the greatest English dramatic writer before Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, is, by the common consent of 
mankind, the greatest dramatist, and in the opinion of a large and 
growing number of critics, the greatest writer, that the world has ever 
produced. His writings created an era in literature, and constitute, 
of themselves a special and most important study. 

His Life. — Our knowledge of the life of Shakespeare is very imper- 
fect, consisting of meagre and unsatisfactory outlines. All that we 
can say of him, on acceptable external evidence, is that he came of^a 
good family in Stratford-upon-Avon, that his father was a butcher or 
a glover, and that his mother, Mary Arden, was slightly connected 
with the gentry. The poet received a school or academy education, 
and probably nothing more. In 1586, or 1587, he removed to London, 
being probably thrown upon his own resources by his father's failure 
in business. He had previously married Anne Plathaway, a woman 
several years his senior. She seems to have played absolutely no part 



SHAKESPEARE AND EARLY DRAMATISTS. 47 

in determining tlie poet's life and genius. After establishing himself 
in London, he took up play-Tvriting and acting as a profession, soon 
gained an interest in the Blackfriars Theatre, acquired the friendship 
and patronage of the Earl of Southampton, and retired to Stratford a 
Avealthj man, for the last few years of his life. Such is the substance 
of ail that we know about the life of England's greatest poet. 

His Works. — The plavs known to be Shakespeare's are thirty-five 
in number, and are divided into Tragedies, Comedies, and Histories. 
Besides his plays, we have his Sonnets, his Venus and Adonis, Bape 
of Lucrece, The Lover's Complaint, and Passionate Pilgrim. 

The first collective edition of Shakespeare's Plays appeared in 1623, 
and generally passes by the name of ''The Folio of 1623." 

Ben Jonson. 

Ben Jonson, 1573-1637, was one of the greatest of the English 
dramatists, second to Shakespeare only, of whom he was a contempo- 
rary and a rival. 

Life. — Jonson was the son of a Protestant clergyman, who died a 
month before Ben was born. The current tradition is that the mother 
was married again, the stepfather being a bricklayer, and Ben him- 
self is said to have worked in making or laying brick. He was for a 
time a pupil of the famous Camden, at the "Westminster school, and 
entered the L'niversity, though his stay there was less than a month. 
He turned soldier, and gained distinction in the army in the wars in 
the Low Countries. At the age of nineteen, or thereabouts, he entered 
fully upon the dramatic career, first as an actor, then as an assistant 
to other dramatists in the composition of plays, and finally as an 
original dramatist. 

Principal Plays. — The following are the titles of his principal 
Plays : Every Man in His Humor ; Every Man out of His Humor ; 
Sejanus, a Tragedy; Catiline, a Tragedy; and a large number of 
comedies, masques, and dramatic pieces of different kinds. 

Peculiarities as an Author. — Jonson was accurately versed in the 
Greek and Latin classics, and insisted strongly on giving to the English 
drama the classic forms, and he was disposed to be intolerant and con- 
temptuous of those writers who either were ignorant of Greek and 
Latin, or who for any reason disregarded the classic rules. He was a 
man of genius and wit, as well as scholarship, and he had among his 
contemporaries the familiar name of Pare Ben Jonson. The two 
tragedies which he wrote have high merit, but his comedies are re- 
garded as his best works. 



48 EI^GLISH LITERATURE. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 

Tliese two names have to be taken as indicating one poet rather 
than two, so intimate was their literary partnership. A few facts, 
however, may be stated separately of each. 

Francis Beaumont, 1585-1615, though the younger of the two, 
began his literary career before Fletcher, publishing a translation from 
Ovid, and writing the Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn, 
and minor Poems. He died young, at the age of thirty. 

John Fletcher, 1576-1625, though ten years older than his part- 
ner, was later in beginning authorship, and also survived him ten 
years. After the death of Beaumont, Fletcher brought out fourteen or 
fifteen plays, which are exclusively his own, except that in one of them 
he is said to have had assistance from Rowley. Fletcher wrote no 
undramatic pieces of any note. 

Their Partnership. — The literary partnership of Beaumont and 
Fletcher is one of the most curious things in literary history. Of 
good birth and high connections, and classically educated, at the ages 
respectively of twenty and thirty, in the year 1606, when the genius 
of Shakespeare was in its meridian splendor, and under the influence 
of its bewitching spell, these two young men, of kindred genius, were 
drawn together as joint laborers for ten consecutive years, during which 
they produced no less than thirty-seven or thirty-eight plays, which 
bear their joint name. 

Their Rank and Character. — The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher 
stand higher than those even of Ben Jonson, and, of all the dramatic 
writings of that day, come nearest to the magic circle which encloses 
Shakespeare. Their wonderful knowledge of stage effect doubtless 
helped tlieir popularity. They catered also, to some extent, to the low 
taste of the age, by introducing licentious scenes and expressions, which 
exclude their plays both from the stage and from the domestic circle 
at the present day. 

George Chapman, 1557-1634, is chiefly known as being the first 
English translator of Homer. He wrote very copiously also for the 
stage, and enjoyed the friendship of the great dramatists of the day, 
Shakespeare and Jonson. His plays have pretty nearly passed into 
oblivion. His Homer, however, still survives, and is even now in 
good repute, and is preferred by many to tliat of Pope. 

The other dramatists, contemporary with, or immediately succeed- 
ing Shakespeare, are Thomas Middleton, 1626, John Marston, 



BACON AND PROSE WRITERS. 49 

1634, Thomas Decker, 1638, John Webster, , Philip 

Massinger, 1584-1640, and John Ford, 1586-1639. 

Jainies Shielet, 1596-1666, was the last of the great school of 
dramatists of the Shakespearian era. He was born in London, and 
educated at Cambridge. He took orders in the church, but becoming 
a Catholic, resigned his position, and endeavored to establish himself 
as a classical teacher. Xot succeeding in this, he began writing poems 
and plays. The ordinance of the Long Parliament, prohibiting the 
exhibition of stage-plays, obliged Shirley again to resort to school- 
teachmg as a means of subsistence. Subsequently, however, he re- 
sumed his chosen occupation as a dramatist, and produced a large 
number of plays. 



III. BACON AND CONTEMPORARY PROSE ^A^-RITERS. 

Bacon. 

Francis Bacon, Baron Yerulam, 1561-1626, commonly known as 
Lord Bacon, was one of the greatest of modern philosophers. 

His Opportunities. — Bacon was gifted by nature with abilities of 
the highest order, and he had every advantage which education and 
high birth could bestow for giving his abilities development and exer- 
cise. Hls father held the highest office but one in the Court of Queen 
Elizabeth ; his mother was a woman of great natural abilities and 
genuine nobleness of character, as well as of profound scholarship ; 
his tutors were men of learning and genius ; the society in which he 
mingled fi'om boyhood included all that was greatest and noblest in 
the kingdom- 
Bacon entered the University (Cambridge) at the age of twelve, was 
admitted to Gray's Inn as student of law at sixteen, and soon after 
vrent abroad for the ptirpose of perfecting himself in French and of 
studying foreign institutions. On the death of his father, in 1579, 
Bacon, then eighteen years of age, returned to England and applied 
himself to his legal studies. He rose rapidly in the profession ; was 
elected to Parliament at the age of twenty-four, and continued to sit 
in every House of Commons until 1614, a period of twenty-nine years. 
Else to Power. — On the accession of James I., 1603, Bacon rose 
rapidly to the highest offices in the gift of the sovereign. Bacon was 
then at the age of forty-two. He married a lady of wealth in 1606, 
was made solicitor-general in 1607, one of the judges in 1611, and 
attorney-general in 1613, was appointed keeper of the great seal 
5 D 



50 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

in 1617, and lord high chancellor in 1618. In the same year he was 
raised to the peerage as Baron Verulam, and in 1620 was made Vis- 
count St. Albans. 

His Fall. — Bacon's lo7e of gold got the better of his nobler princi- 
ples. Though in the receipt of a princely revenue from the fees of his 
office and from his professional services, he added still further to his 
income by taking direct bribes as a Judge and giving decisions ex- 
pressly for money. 

Bacon's downfall is one of the most lamentable in history. Not that 
he was worse than thousands of others in public position. But his 
transcendent greatness in other respects makes his meanness only the 
more damaging. 

His Works. — Bacon's works have been published in 17 vols., 8vo. 
The greatest of these is Instauratio Magna, the great instauration, or 
restoration, of the sciences. Part first of the Instauratio is De Aug- 
mentis Scientiarum, or of the advancement of learning. Part second 
is Novum Organum, the new instrument or method of pursuing the 
sciences, the term referring to Aristotle's method, called Organum. 
There are four other parts, the whole forming a grand outline of the 
possibilities of human knowledge and of the methods of discovery. 
His most popular work was a small volume of Essays, of which count- 
less editions have been sold. They were written in English, expressly 
for popular reading, and on topics Avhich, in his own language, came 
home to the "business and bosoms" of all. He wrote also a collection 
of Apothegms, which has been very popular. 

Style. — Bacon has an aphoristic style of writing, which has been 
noticed by all critics. It occurs in the Novum Organum, as well as 
in the Essays. It gives the reader the idea of one who has meditated 
long upon what he has to say, until the truth about it has become per- 
fectly clear to his own mind, and then it is put forth, not in the shape 
of argument, or for discussion, but as so much fixed truth, to be re- 
ceived into the consciousness of the reader. No finer specimens of 
English prose are to be found than Bacon's Essays. 

Roger Aseham. 

Boger Ascham, 1515-1569, is famous as the tutor of Queen Elizabeth, 
and as the author of two admirable works, one on archery, Toxophilus, 
and one on education, The Schoolmaster. 

There is something very genial and pleasing in the tone and style 
of these works, which have made them great favorites. The "School- 
master" especially has been held in high esteem, not only for its 



BACON AND PROSE WRITERS. 51 

excellencies of style, but for the many valuable ideas it contains on 
the subject of education, and for the interesting pictures it gives us of 
the state of education in those times. 

Robert Burton. 

Eobert Burton, 1576-1640, a quaint and learned writer, is known 
almost exclusively by his one work, The Anatomy of Melancholy. 
The Anatomy of Melancholy contains a vast amount of curious lore, 
and the book has been a general favorite among scholarly people, 
who had the learning and the leisure to follow him in his quiet and 
somewhat sombre musings. 

Sir Richard Baker. 

Sir Eichard Baker, 1568-1645, has a place in literature on account 
of his famous Chronicles of the Kings of England. Baker's Chron- 
icle was about the only history that Englishmen had imtil the pub- 
lication of Eapin. The critics denounced it as unscholarly and 
inaccurate. But it was written in a pleasant, entertaining style, and 
it continued for a long time to be published and read, holding its 
place in the old-fashioned chimney-corners, on the same shelf with 
the Family Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs. Addison, in his pic- 
ture of Sir Eoger De Coverly, describes him as drawing " many ob- 
servations together, out of his reading of Baker's Chronicle." 

Hakluyt. 

Eichard Hakluyt, 1553-1616, contributed to the literature of voy- 
ages and travels by the valuable collection which he published, com- 
monly known as Hakluyt' s Voyages. Hakluyt was not a traveller ^ 
himself, but merely a publisher of the travels of others. To his zeal 
and industry it is that we owe the preservation of many accounts of 
voyages that would otherwise have been lost. Hakluyt's Voyages 
contain an immense amomit of information relative to the early set- 
tlement of America. 

John Fox. 

John Fox, 1517-1587, is familiarly known as Th€ Martyrologist. 
Fox was educated at Oxford, where he attained high distinction for 
scholarship. His work was first published in one vol., fol. In sub- 
sequent editions, it was enlarged to 2 vols., and then to 3 vols., fol. 
The title, or rather the first part of it, as given by himself, was, Acts 
and Monuments of these Latter and Perilous Days, Touching Matters 



52 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of tlie Church. It is commonly known as Fox's Book of Martyrs. 
The book has had an enormous circulation, especially in its abridged 
forms, though it is no longer read as generally and devoutly as it 
once was. 

Richard Hooker. 

Bichard Hooker, 1553-1600, is the ablest advocate of the church 
or2;anization of England that has yet appeared. Hooker's great work, 
The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, is an elaborate and dignified exposi- 
tion and defence of the ministry and ritual of the Church of England, 
and is an acknowledged classic on that subject. The style of his book 
has received universal and unqualified approbation, both for the ex^ 
cellency of its English, and its entire suitableness to the subject. For 
the general soundness of his judgment, he has received the name of 
the judicious Hooker. 





CHAPTER VI. 

The Enqlish Bible, and Other Public Stand- 
ards OF Faith and Worship. 

(13S0-1650.) 

No literary works in any language exert so great an influence on the 
speech, the thoughts, and the doings of men as those written documents 
which contain the popular, authorized expression of their religious 
belief and forms of worship. 

The Vedas in the Sanskrit and the Koran in the Arabic are the 
most important literary treasures in their respective languages. So in 
English, the Version of the Scriptures, the symbols of Faith, and the 
forms of Public Worship, which have been received and used for many 
generations by a large majority of English-speaking people, must, as 
mere literary treasures, be regarded as second to none which the lan- 
guage contains. In the present chapter, therefore, a brief account will 
be given of some of the most important of the works of this kind which 
exist in English. These are the following: 1. The English Bible, 
2. The English Prayer-Book, 3. The Shorter Catechism, 4. English 
Hymnody. 

The movements which led to the production of these important works, 
cover a period of three centuries, from the middle of the fourteenth 
century to the middle of the seventeenth (1350-1650). 

I. THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 

Besides translations of particular portions of the Bible into English, 
some of which go back to a very early date, various Versions of the 
whole Bible have been made, beginning with that of Wvckliffe, 1382, 
5* '53 



64 EXaLISH LITERATURE. 

and ending mtli that made in IGll, and commonly known as King 
James's, or the Authorized Version. Some account of these several 
Versions will now be given. 

1. V/yekliffe's Version. 

The first Version of the entire Bible in English "vras that made by 
"Wyckliffe and his disciples. It was completed about the year 1382. 

Wyckliffe's Version was made from the Vulgate, not from the Greek 
and Hebrew. It is in plain and homely phraseology, and is a fine 
specimen of the prose English of the fourteenth century. It was cir- 
culated in manuscript, the art of printing having not yet been invented. 

After the completion of Wyckliffe's Version, an interval of a cen- 
tury and a half occurred before any further attempts were made in 
this direction. Early in the sixteenth century, in connection with 
the general religious reformation, the subject of an English version of 
the Scriptures was revived, and the work was carried on without in- 
terruption for three-fourths of a century. This movement began in 
the reign of Henry VIIL, and continued all through the reigns of 
Edward VI., Mary, and Eiizabeth, and finally culminated in the 
reign of James I. The originator of this movement, and the man who 
did singly more towards its accomplishment than any other one man, 
was William Tyndale. 

2. Tyndale' s Version. 

William Tyndale, 1480-1536, translated the New Testament, the 
Pentateuch and the other Historical Books of the Old Testament. His 
'New Testament first appeared in 1525. The Version made by Tyn- 
dale was used to a large extent by all the subsequent Protestant trans- 
lators ; it is really the basis of our present version. Tliere is in our 
present version more of Tyndale than of all the other translators put 
together. 

The chief characteristics of Tyndale' s Version are these : 1. He 
translated directly from the Greek and Hebrew originals, not from 
the Latin Vulgate. 2. He adopted i^urposely the words and idioms 
of the common people, avoiding what were then called "ink-horn 
phrases," that is, modes of expression taken from books and men 
of learning, and not suited to the understanding of plain, unlettered 
people. This feature has been to a great extent perpetuated in our 
common version, and is one of its leading excellencies. 3. He trans- 
lated what are called the " ecclesiastical words." The Catholics and 
some of the Reformers maintained that, in translating the Scrip- 



THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 55 

tures into any modern language, the •'ecclesiastical -^vords," instead 
of being translated, should be transferred, with only such changes of 
spelling as might be necessary. Tyndale, on the contrary, held that 
every word, the meaning of which was known, should be literally 
translated. Accordingly, for "grace" he said favor, for "penance" 
repentance, for " church " congregation, for " priests " seniors or elders, 
for " bishops " overseers, for " confessing " acknowledging, for " chal- 
ice " cup, and so on. * 

3. Coverdale's Version. 

Miles Coverdale, 1487-1568, has the distinguished honor of being 
the first to give his countrymen the whole jsrinfed Bible in English. 
Cbverdale's Bible was first printed on the continent, in 1535. Cover- 
dale's Version, though by no means equal to Tyndale' s, has considerable 
merit. In regard to the " ecclesiastical words," Coverdale pursued a 
middle and a vacillating course, sometimes translating, and sometimes 
transferring them. He translated, not from the originals, but from the 
Dutch and the Latin. 

4. Matthew's Version. 

The Bible known as Matthew's was the first version in English tliat 
was regularly authorized by the King. It appeared in folio, in 1537, 
two years after that of Coverdale. 

It has been pretty well ascertained that the name Thomas Matthew, 
affixed to this version, is a fiction. The real author was John Eogers, 
commonly known as the " proto-martyr." 

History of the Work. — Eogers was a convert of Tyndale's, and had 
been associated with him m the work of translation. When Tyndale 
was put to death, Eogers continued and completed the work on which 
they had been laboring together. As the name of Eogers was associ- 
ated with that of Tyndale, and might have raised opposition in the 
mind of the King, the printers, in presenting the book for licensure, 
put in the title-page the convenient fiction of Thomas Matthew. Such 
is the now commonly received opinion. The work in every part bears 
the strongest internal evidence of being in the main that of Tyndale, 
supplemented by his friend and disciple, John Eogers. 

g. The Great Bible. 

The version known as the Great Bible first appeared in 1539. It 
was not a mere reprint of a previous version, but had features of its 



66 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

own, giving it an original and independent character. In the follow- 
ing year, 1540, this Bible, without noticeable alteration, was reprinted, 
with a prologue by Cranmer. In this form, it is called, sometimes, 
the Great Bible, sometimes Cranmer' s Bible. It was a stately folio, 
and was intended especially for use in churches. All churches and 
religious houses were required to have copies of it ; and no less than 
six large editions of it were printed in 1540 and 1541. 

This Bible was the Authorized Version of the English Church, from 
1540 to 1568 (excepting the interval of Mary's reign). The Psalms 
and most of the other portions of Scripture found in the Prayei'-Book 
were taken from this version, it being the one in use when the Prayer- 
Book was compiled. 

6. The Geneva Version. 

The English Protestants resident at Geneva brought out in that 
city an English version of the Scriptures m 1560. This version is 
generally known as the Geneva Bible. The English refugees at 
Geneva were mostly Presbyterians. They were dissatisfied with 
Cranmer's Bible, partly on account of its expensiveness, which put it 
beyond the reach of common people, but chiefly on account of its sup- 
posed leaning towards Episcopacy. 

The Geneva Version was, for the next sixty years, altogether the 
most popular version in England. No less than eighty editions of it 
were printed between 1560 and 1611, the time of the publication of 
the version made by order of King James. The Geneva Version 
even kept its ground for some considerable time after that event, and 
gave way only by slow degrees. Some of the reasons for this popu- 
larity were the following: 1. The translation was in itself, in many 
respects, an excellent one. 2. It was, like TS'ndale^s, comparatively 
free from "ink-horn phrases," and suited to popular reading. 8. It 
was, in all its editions, in a smaller and cheaper volume than the 
" Great Bible " of Cranmer. 4. It was the first English Bible that 
laid aside the obsolescent old black letter, and appeared in the com- 
mon Roman type. 5. It was the first English Bible in which the text 
was broken up, as at j^resent, into verses. 6. The "ISTotes," explana- 
tory and homiletical, which accompanied the text, w-ere highly es- 
teemed, and added greatly to its value in the eyes of the common 
people. 

7. Tlie Bisliops' Bible. 

Another version, or revision, commonly known as the Bishops' 
Bible, was projected by Archbishop Parker, and brought to completion 



THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 57 

in 1568. The work was parcelled out by tlie Archbishop to fifteen 
men having special eminence as Greek and Hebrew scholars, the re- 
sult of their labors being revised by the Archbishop himself. As a 
majority of the translators were Bishops, the version obtained the 
name of the Bishops' Bible. The version was made on the basis of 
Cranmer's, and was executed in a creditable manner ; and it contained, 
as all admit, some valuable improvements. Yet it made little head- 
way against the Geneva version, and did not even entirely displace 
Cranmer's. 

8. Th.e Rheims-Douay Version. 

The English version of the Bible in use among Catholics was made 
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth by Catholic refugees living at Rheims, 
in France, in 1582. The IS'ew Testament was printed at Eheims, in 
1582, and the Old Testament at Douay, in 1609. The work is some- 
times called the Eheims-Douay Version, and sometimes simply the 
Douay Version. 

The Eheims-Douay Version is made directly from the Vulgate. 
The translators give abundant evidence of scholarship, and many of 
their renderings challenge admiration. Their diction is at times just 
sufficiently archaic to give a venerable air to their work ; and they 
retain some fine old English words and phrases which have now unfor- 
tunately gone out of general use. On the other hand they are ex- 
tremely literal, translating word for word, and maintaining even the 
Latin order of the words, and they retain with scrupulous care, and 
on principle, all the old " ecclesiastical words." They also give nu- 
merous expository notes, following in this respect the example of all 
the previous versions, and especially that executed at Geneva. 

About the middle of the last century, Bishop Challoner made a 
careftil revision of the Rheims-Douay Version, amounting almost to a 
new version. Challoner's work consisted mainly in abandoning that 
extreme literalness which marked the version originally, and in mod- 
ernizing, to some extent, its archaic diction, and bringing its expres- 
sions more within the scope of current modern English. The first 
edition of it is dated 1750. 

9. King James's Version. 

The English version of the Bible in common use among Protestants, 
and generally known as the Authorized Version, was made in 1611, 
in the reign of J ames I. 

The King's plan was to appoint fifty-four translators, divided into 



58 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

six companies, of which two companies were to be settled at Oxford, 
two at Cambridge, and two at Westminster, and to each company a 
certain portion of the Scriptures was assigned for translation. Only 
forty-seven translators were actually appointed. The translators were 
designated in 1604. The work of actual translation, however, did not 
begin until 1607. Three years of continuous labor were then spent 
by the several companies in completing the particular part assigned 
to each. Three-fourths of a year were afterwards spent in revising 
the whole by a joint committee of revision, consisting of two delegates 
from each company.. This committee having gone over the whole 
and settled the text, it was put into the hands of two, Bishop Bilson 
on behalf of the Bishops, and Dr. Miles Smith on behalf of the Trans- 
lators, to attend to the printing. The work was completed in 1611. 

The men engaged in this work were taken mostly from the Uni- 
versities, and were among the most conspicuous scholars of their 
day. A code of rules was drawn up for their guidance, the most im- 
portant of which was that no notes or comments were to be added. 
Two other regulations were that the Bishops' Bible was to be made 
the basis, and that the old ecclesiastical words were to be kept. These 
rules were less rigorously observed, the translators taking a middle 
course. Only a few of the ecclesiastical words were retained, and the 
version as a whole comes nearer to that of Tyndale than to any other. 

The new version soon displaced all other Protestant versions, even 
the Geneva gradually giving way to it; and from that time to the 
present it has been the translation in common use among all English 
Protestants. No version of the Scriptures in any language ever en- 
joyed a greater popularity. Its literary character especially has 
received the highest commendation. There is, in the language, no 
work of equal value as a specimen of English. Catholic and Prot- 
estant alike have recognized its' value in this respect. 

II. THE ENGLISH PRAYER-BOOK. 

Another of the great treasures of English literature is the Book of 
Common Prayer according to the Use of the Church of England. As 
a specimen of English it is unequalled by anything that the language 
contains, except the English Version of tlie Bible. When we con- 
sider the influence vfhich the continual and reverent use of such a 
book, for more than ten generaticns, must have had upon the lan- 
guage, the opinions, the feelings, and the conduct of a great people, 
it is impossibki not to concede that it holds a foremost rank among 
the treasures of the language. 



THE ENGLISH PRAYER-BOOK, 59 

The greater part of the substance of this book existed previously 
in Latin, and is traceable to a remote antiquity. Some portions of 
the service had been translated into English for the use of the people 
one hundred and fifty years at least before the preparation of the 
Prayer-Book in its present form. This earlier book of service, exist- 
ing with variations in different dioceses, and under different reigns, 
but having a substantial uniformity, was called the Prymer. The 
word appears to have been originally derived from some small man- 
uals, which were spread among the people, of the first and chief 
lessons of religious belief and practice. This old English Prymer 
contains the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the 
Litany, and many other equally familiar portions of the present ser- 
vice. It formed, evidently, the basis for a large part of the present 
Prayer-Book. 

On the accession of Edward YI. the subject of preparing a Book 
of Common Prajer was proposed, and a Commission was appointed, 
consisting of Archbishop Cranmer, six Bishops, and six clergy of the 
Lower House of Convocation. Tliis commission proceeded with due 
deliberation, and having completed their labors, i3resented the Book 
of Common Prayer to the King, to be by him laid before Parliament. 
The book, after some discussion, was accepted by Parliament, and an 
Act of -Uniformity was passed, making its use obligatory. This book, 
first issued in 1549, is called the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. 

In the following year another Commission was appointed by the 
King, consisting of Cranmer and a number of divines, to give a revi- 
sion of the first book. The book, as revised by them, was reported 
to Parliam_ent, adopted, and issued, in 1552, and is known as the 
Second Prayer-Book of Edward YI. 

On the accession of Elizabeth, the Prayer-Book was subject to a 
further and final revision, and was adopted in its present form in 1559. 
There was, however, an additional collection of Prayers and Thanks- 
givings upon Several Occasions, appended to the Morning and Even- 
ing Prayer, in 1662. 

The English Book of Common Prayer was formed in the main out 
of materials previously existing, partly in English, partly in Latin, 
in the service-books of the various dioceses, many of them traceable 
to a remote antiquity. It was not the work of any one man, or set 
of men, though traces of particular workmen may be found here and 
there, but was the slow and steady outgrowth of time, as it is a noble 
expression of a great. God-fearing race. 



60 ENGLISH LITBRATUBE. 

III. THE SHORTER CATECHISM. 

Another document worthy of mention among the literary treasures 
of the language is the Shorter Catechism prepared by the Assembly 
of Divines who met at Westminster in 1643. 

This famous Assembly was nearly sis years in session, having been 
convened July 1, 1643, and having adjourned finally February 22, 
1649. It contained many of the choicest spirits of the Presbyterian 
element in both England and Scotland, All the documents which 
they put forth, the Confession of Faith, the Directory for Public 
Worship, the Form of Church Government and Discipline, and the 
Catechisms, are remarkable as mere literary productions. But none 
of them are to be compared in this respect with that known as the 
Shorter Catechism. As a mere specimen of exact verbal expression, 
there probably has been nothing superior to the Shorter Catechism 
since the days of Aristotle. 

To the entire body of English-speaking Presbyterians all over the 
world, and to the great majority of Congregationalists also, this won- 
derful summary of Christian doctrine has formed a part of the house- 
hold treasures of the race. By long-established custom it has from 
early years been lodged in the memory of nearly every Presbyterian 
child ; it is associated, in the minds of Presbyterians, with deeds of 
heroic daring and patience, which make it dear to the heart. There 
can be little fear of mistake, therefore, in placing this Shorter Cate- 
chism of the Westminster Assembly among the literary treasures of 
the language. The influence of this Catechism upon the opinions, 
the conduct, the language, the modes of thought and expression, of 
those who have received it, is beyond that of any other uninspired 
book which the literature of the race contains. 

As a system of doctrine, this Catechism has of course its opponents. 
But as a model of expression, and as a specimen of standard English, 
in which character alone it has a place in the present volume, it has 
defied criticism. 

IV. ENQLISH HYMNODY. 

The religious Beformation of the sixteenth century has given a 
wonderful development to a particular form of lyric poetry, Psalms 
and Hymns, in the two races, English and German, chiefly afiected by 
that movement. Psalms and Hymns are not new in religious worship. 
They have been used by the Christian Church in all ages. But the 
particular form of the Psalms and Hymns now in use originated with 
the Reformation. 



ENGLISH HYMNODY. 61 

A leading idea witli the Reformers, both in England and on the 
continent, was to simplify religious worship, and to give to the laity a 
more active participation in it. Instead, therefore, of the elaborate 
and multiplied forms of the old established ritual, the Protestant 
churches adopted a service of a much simpler character, and this 
always included, of course, the church music. This change, first made 
by Luther, was followed up by Calvin, and from him found its way 
into England through the English exiles living at Geneva. 

Sternliold and Hopkins. 

The first Psalm-Book, or metrical version of the whole Psalter, in a 
form suited for public worship, that was used in the English Church, 
was that known as Sternhold and Hopkins. It was so called from the 
two men chiefly engaged in its production. It was completed in 1562. 

Not one of the parties concerned in this version seems to have had 
the slightest particle of taste, or feeling of genuine poetry. The lan- 
guage is occasionally elevated and pure, because the stanza is nothing 
more than the common prose version, with the words so arranged as 
to make lines and to rhyme. In the main the authors fully justify the 
language of Campbell, who says, that " with the best intentions and the 
worst taste, they degraded the spirit of Hebrew Psalmody by flat And 
homely phraseology ; and mistaking vulgarity for simplicity, turned 
into bathos what they found sublime." 

Tate and Brady. 

A New Version of the Psalter appeared in 1696, one hundred and 
thirty-four years after the first appearance of Sternhold and Hopkins. 
The authors of the "New Version" were Nahum Tate (1652-1715), 
poet-laureate, and Nicholas Brady, J). D. (1659-1726), chaplain to 
"William IIL, both Irishmen by birth. Tate and Brady gained but 
slowly upon its ancient rival. Not many years ago either was bound 
up with the various editions of the English Prayer-Book, according to 
the taste or the interest of the publishers. 

Rouse's Psalms. 

The Scotch Version of the Psalms was made in 1645, by Francis 
Bouse, an English statesman. Bouse was a member of Parliament, 
and also of the Westminster Assembly, and was Provost of Eton under 
the Commonwealth. Bouse' s Version, after some revision, was " allowed 
and appointed to be sung" in 1649, and is still exclusively used by the 
stricter offshoots of the Scotch Kirk. 
6 



62 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Watts's Psalms and Hymns. 

The first English Hymn-Book used in public worship was that of 
Dr. Isaac Watts, 1674-1748. There were other hymn writers before 
his time, but his collection, which came into use about 1715, was the 
first regular Hymn-Book. 

No such body of sacred verse as Watts's had been seen or imagined 
before by Englishmen, and its eifect was immense. For a long time 
his Psalms and Hymns entire weve used, exclusively, or nearly so, by 
the great bulk of Dissenters in Britain and of Calvinists in America. 

Wesleyan Hymns. 

Within the same generation with Dr. Watts another school of hym- 
nody was founded by a yet more fertile writer, Charles Wesley (1708- 
1788). Of his separate hymns there must be fully- six thousand. 
His life was one of great activity, but his thoughts naturally ran into 
rhyme and metre. He composed on horseback, and under all con- 
ceivable circumstances. John Wesley possessed a poetic talent hardly 
inferior to that of his brother Charles, but it was less exercised. Some 
of their books appeared under their joint names. 

The choicest of the Wesleyan hymns appeared in John Wesley's 
great Collection, 1779, for which its editor claimed, with entire truth, 
that '' no such hymn-book as this had yet been published in the Eng- 
lish language." 

Successors to Watts and Wesley. 

Dr. Watts had many imitators or followers, of whom the most con- 
spicuous and useful were Philip Doddridge, D. D. (1702-1751), and 
Mrs. Anne Steele (1716-1778). Some hymnists wrote under the influ- 
ence both of Watts and of Wesley. The most eminent of these are 
Toplady (1740-1778) ; the Olney hymnists, Cowper and Newton; and 
Joseph Hart (1702-1768). 




CHAPTER VII. 

Milton and his Contemporaries. 

(1625-1675.) 

The next great name in English literature, in chronological order, 
after Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, is that of Milton. 

The period to which Milton more especially belongs is that of the 
Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 1649-1660. He is connected, 
however, in many ways, with the preceding reign, that of Charles I., 
1625-1649, and to some extent with the succeeding reign, that of 
Charles II., 1660-1685. 

The great historical events of this period are the rise of the House 
of Commons to power, ending in a rupture between the Parliament 
and the King ; the execution of the King ; the brief rule of the Com- 
monwealth and of Cromwell ; and the Eestoration of the Stuarts. 

The writers of this period are divided into three Sections : 1. The 
Poets, beginning with Milton ; 2. Political and Miscellaneous writers, 
beginning with Clarendon; 3. Theological writers, beginning with 
Jeremy Taylor. 

I. THE POETS. 

Milton. 

John Milton, 1608-1674, if not the greatest of English poets, is 
second to Shakespeare only. Milton's chief poem, Paradise Lost, is 
unique in literary history, and is admitted by all to be one of the 
noblest achievements of human genius. Milton's personal character 
also has a certain stateliness and grandeur, hardly inferior to that of 
his chief poem, and is of itself enough to mark him as one of the 

63 



64 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

great men of all time. There is no grander figure in English history 
than that of John Milton. 

Eirth and Education. — Milton was a native of London, the son of 
a scrivener. His early education was begun by a private tutor, and 
was marked from the first by a zealous devotion to classical studies. 
The same trait followed him at Cambridge, where he acquired dis- 
tinction as a Latin poet. He entered the University at the age of 
fifteen, and remained there seven years, taking his degree of Bachelor 
in 1628, and that of Master of Arts in 1632, 

Subsequent Studies. — After leaving the University, Milton retired 
to the house of his father, then living in the country, at Horton, in 
Buckinghamshire, and remained there five years, during which time 
he continued with unabated zeal to read the Greek and Latin writers. 
During this period of studious retirement, also, he wrote the poems 
Arcades, Comus, Lycidas, L' Allegro, and II Penseroso. 

European Travel. — In 1638, being then at the age of thirty, attended 
by a servant, Milton spent fifteen months in travel on the continent, 
visiting Paris, Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, Florence, Eome, Naples, and 
other cities of Italy, " the most accomplished Englishman that ever 
visited her classic shores." 

Impression that he Made. — The elegance of Milton's manner and 
of his person (he was remarkable for his beauty), and his extraordi- 
nary accomplishments and learning, made him everywhere the object 
of attention among men of letters. " I contracted," says he " an inti- 
macy with many persons of rank and learning, and was a constant 
attendant at their literary parties,— a practice which prevails there 
and tends so much to the diffusion of knowledge and the preservation 
of friendship." Among the men of note whose acquaintance he made 
were Grotius, Galileo, Carlo Dati, Francini, and Manso. Being thor- 
oughly at home in the Italian language, he composed while in Italy 
several poems and complimentary Sonnets in Italian, which gained 
him great applause. 

Cause of his Eeturn. — The news which Milton received from home 
of the unsettled state of affliirs led him to return to England sooner 
than he had intended. " When I was preparing to pass over into Sicily 
and Greece, the melancholy intelligence which I received of the civil 
commotions in England made me alter my purpose ; for I thought it 
base to be travelling for amusement abroad while my fellow-citizens 
were fighting for liberty at home." 

Occupation in London. — On Milton's return, he settled in London: 
"I looked about to see if I could get any place that could hold myself 
and my books, and so I took a house of sufiicient size in the city ; and 



MILTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 65 

there, with no small delight, I resumed my intermitted studies, — 
chiefly leaving the event of public affairs, first to God, and then to 
those to whom the people had committed that task." While thus liv- 
ing, he undertook the instruction of his two nej)hews, John and Edward 
Phillips, and of a few other lads, sons of his intimate friends. 

First Works as a Political Writer. — The affairs of the nation appear 
to have been uppermost in Milton's thoughts, and he began soon after 
that a series of remarkable treatises on matters of church and state, 
by which he became known throughout Europe as the foremost cham- 
pion of the Commonwealth. He wrote, in 1641, Of Eeformation 
touching Church Discipline in England, The Eeason of Church Gov- 
ernment against Prelaty, and some other works of a like character, and 
in 1642, An Apology for Smectymnuus. 

Marriage and Divorce. — In 1643, Milton was married to Mary 
Powell, the daughter of a loyalist Justice of the Peace, in Oxfordshire. 
Something of romance seems to have entered into this affair ; and the 
lady, after living with him for a month, and not finding the Puritan 
atmosphere congenial, went on a visit to her father's house, and refused 
to return. Milton, thereupon, believing that the Scriptures gave to the 
husband, under such circumstances, the right of divorce, proceeded 
formally to repudiate his wife. 

Treatises on Divorce. — After thus repudiating his wife, Milton pub- 
lished in rapid succession his famous treatises on this subject: The 
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce ; Tetrachordon, or Exposition of 
the Four Chief Places in Scripture which treat of the Nullities of 
Marriage ; The Judgment of the Famous Martin Bucer touching Di- 
vorce; Colasterion. 

End of the Matter. — The matter ended in the wife's becoming re- 
pentant, and in Milton's taking her back ; they seem to have lived 
happily together afterwards. 

Two Admired Treatises. — About the same time, 1644, Milton pub- 
lished his two prose works which have been most admired, A Tractate 
on Education, and Areopagitica, or A Plea for the Liberty of Un- 
licensed Printing. 

Appointment as Latin Secretary. — In 1648, Milton was appointed 
Latin Secretary to the Council of State, and he afterwards held the 
same office under Cromwell. This office was equivalent to tliat of 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, matters of diplomacy being then con- 
ducted chiefly in Latin. 

Work as Secretary. — The business of the Secretary, however, at 
least as conceived by Milton himself, was not only to write the dis- 
patches to foreign governments, but to compose from time to time such 
6* E 



66 ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

treatises on affairs of state as might be needed to vindicate the pro- 
ceedings of his Government before the public tribmial of the world. 
An abler, more conscientious, or more independent advocate, probably, 
was never raised up for any great political party. His various " Trac- 
tates " are as celebrated in their way as was the military or the politi- 
cal career of Cromwell, and are almost as much a part of the history 
of the times. 

Political Writings. — The titles of some of Milton's political Trac- 
tates are the following : The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Prov- 
ing that it is Lawful to Call to Account a Tyrant or Wicked King ; 
Eikonoklastes, literally "The Image Breaker," written to weaken the 
force of the book put forth by the royalist party, called Eikon Basilike, 
" The Royal Image ; " and A Defence of the People of England against 
Salmasius. The work last named was the crowning effort of Milton's 
genius in political writing. Salmasius was the picked champion of 
the royalist party on the continent. He was a man of great learning 
and eloquence, and had written A Defense of Charles I. It was the 
appeal of the royalists against the republicans, and was trumpeted 
throughout Europe as unanswerable. Milton's reply was so crushing 
in its force that Salmasius is said to have died of chagrin at the mor- 
tifying defeat. 

After the Eestoration. — On the downfall of the Commonwealth and 
the Restoration of the Stuarts, Milton found it necessary to keep him- 
self out of the public view until the passage of the Act of Oblivion, in 
1660. During the latter years of his life, in consequence of the celeb- 
rity of his writings, he was an object of great interest and reverence 
to foreigners visiting England^ and his house was often thronged with 
distinguished visitors. 

Milton was three times married, but had surviving children only by 
his first wife, — three daughters. 

His Blindness. — In 1653, while in the midst of his political labors, 
and partly in consequence of them, Milton became totally blind. He 
had from youth suffered from weakness of the eyes, and the excessive 
use of them in this season of intense excitement hastened the final dis- 
aster. Several of his political Tractates, and his three longest Poems, 
were composed while he was thus shut out from all sight of the exter- 
nal world. 

The Paradise Lost, commenced many years before, was published in 
1667 ; Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were published in 
1671. The Paradise Lost, after its completion, had to wait two years 
before it could find a publisher, and even then its way to fame was 
very slow. The whole amount received by him and his family from 



MILTON AND. HIS CONTEMPOEARIES. 67 

tlie copyright of it was only £28. The odium attached to him for liis 
championship of a defeated political party was doubtless one cause of 
so tardy a recognition. " Waller, not Milton, was long considered the 
Virgil of the nation." — London Quarterly. Waller himself, in the 
heyday of his pride, wrote these words : "The old blind schoolmaster, 
John Milton, hath published a tedious poem on the Fall of Man : if 
its length be not considered a merit, it hath no other." 

Waller. 

Edmund Waller, 1605-1687, was regarded in his day as one of the 
great lights of English literature. It is now by sufferance only that 
he holds in literature any place at all. 

Waller's poems are nearly all short occasional pieces, chiefly of an 
amatory nature. In connection with Godolphin, Waller also trans- 
lated the fourth book of the iEneid. He was one of the most popular 
poets of the age of the Restoration, and was long regarded as the most 
elegant and refined master of style. But he has gradually fallen into 
almost total disrepute and neglect. 

Cowley. 

Abraham Cowley, 1618-1667, was likewise accounted in his day as 
one of the greatest of English poets. This verdict also has long since 
been reversed. Cowley was, undoubtedly, a man of abilities, and an 
accomplished scholar ; but his poems lack truth and naturalness. He 
tried to make poetry out of what he had read in books, instead of 
making it out of his own experience of life. 

Cowley's poetical works are divided into four parts : Miscellanies ; 
Mistress, or Love Verses ; Pindaric Odes ; and The Davideis, a heroic 
poem, celebrating the troubles of David. 

Wither. 

George Wither, 1588-1667, was a poet of some note in his own day, 
who, after having passed almost into oblivion, has in recent times 
risen again into favor. His restoration to notice is due chiefly to the 
praises of Southey, Lamb, and others in the present century. 

Wither was an exceedingly voluminous writer. The list of his 
separate publications numbers nearly one hundred. Among the best 
are Wither's Motto (Nee habeo, nee careo, nee euro), and The Hymns 
and Songs of the Church. 



68 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



Herrick. 

Kobert Herrick, 1591-1662, was a lyric poet of considerable note, in 
the times of the Commonwealth and the Restoration. He was edu- 
cated at Cambridge, and took holy orders, but was sadly unclerical, 
both in his manner of life and in his writings. He was a frequenter 
of taverns, where he " quaffed the mighty bowl " with Ben Jonson and 
other boon companions. His verse is mostly of the light, anacreontic 
kind, and some of it is loose and licentious. 

Herrick published Noble Numbers, or Pious Pieces, containing only 
hymns and other religious lyrics ; also, Hesperides, containing both 
devotional pieces and anacreontics, or " works human and divine," as 
he himself styled them, and the two kinds are oddly mixed up. With 
all his irregularities, however, he was a genuine poet, and he often 
wrote with singular sweetness and beauty. 

Suckling. 

Sir John Suckling, 1608-1642, was pre-eminently the cavalier-poet 
of the times of Charles I. Suckling's poetical works are of tliree kinds, 
— his dramas, which are of little value, his longer pieces, which are 
not much read, and his ballads and songs. These last have placed 
Suckling at the very head of English writers of song. They are not 
characterized by any very profound emotion, but are unsurpassed for 
sprightliness and ease. 

Butler. 

Samuel Butler, 1612-1680, was a humorous writer of great celebrity. 
His chief work, Hudibras, a sort of English Don Quixote, is univer- 
sally received as one of the best works of wit and humor to be found 
in the language. The wit indeed often depends upon circumstances 
and allusions with which the public are no longer familiar, and there- 
fore the work is not so generally read as it once was. Still it is, and 
it will ever be, a great favorite. The object of the poem was to ridi- 
cule the Puritans. 

Other Poets. 

Some of the other poets of this period are the following : 
Thomas Carew, 1589-1639, a gay courtier of the time of Charles I., 
and the' author of numerous short amatory pieces and songs of the con- 
ventional kind then in fashion ; Sir William Davenant, 1605-1668, 
a dramatist, who succeeded Ben Jonson as Poet Laureate, and at 
his death was buried in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription, " O 



MILTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 69 

Eare Sir William Davenant! " ; John Taylor, 1580-1654, self-styled 
" The Water-Poet," and the author of ov€r one hundred and thirty- 
poems and pieces, descriptive, satirical, and humorous ; Fbakcis 
EousE, 1579-1658, celebrated for his metrical version of the Psalms, 
which is still used with loving reverence by a large and respectable 
body of Presbyterians, both in Great Britain and America ; Francis 
QuARLES, 1592-1644, a quaint writer, the author of numerous works, 
mostly poetical, and now known chiefly by his book of Emblems; 
and William Habington, 1605-1645, an accomplished English 
Catholic, who published a volume of Poems, under the title of Castara, 
and A History of Edward IV. 



II. POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 

Clarendon. 

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1673, was an eminent writer 
and statesman of the times of Charles I. and Charles II. Clarendon 
favored the Stuart cause, but with moderation. After Charles I. was 
beheaded. Clarendon remained abroad with Charles II., and came in 
with the Kestoration. He was at the head of the ministry under 
Charles II., and his daughter, Ann Hyde, was married to the King's 
brother, the Duke of York. Two of Clarendon's descendants Arough 
her — Mary and Anne — became Queens of England. On the acces- 
sion of the Whigs to power, he was deprived of office and driven into 
exile, and he ended his days abroad, though after his death his remains 
were allowed to be deposited in Westminster Abbey. 

Clarendon's writings are numerous, and are of the highest value. 
They are important, not only as authentic records of grave historical 
transactions, by one who was a chief actor in them, but as noble speci- 
mens of English literature. His chief work is his History of the 
Eebellion, that is, of the civil war connected with the expulsion and 
restoration of the Stuarts. It is a large work, printed usually in 6 
or 7 vols. 8vo. 

Prynne. 

William Prynne, 1600-1669, an English Puritan, was first brought 
into notice by his book, Histrio-Mastix, A Scourge for the Players, 
and by the barbarous punishment to which he was subjected on account 
of it. Prynne's book was a general tirade against stage-glays, as 
being " sinful, heathenish, lewd, ungodly spectacles," and against the 
" profession of play-poets and stage-players " and the " frequenting of 



70 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

stage-plays," as being '' unlawful, infamous, and misbeseeming Chris- 
tians," "besides sundry other particulars concerning dancing, dicing, 
health-drinking, &c." This furious blast was no off-hand performance, 
but a laborious work, in quarto, on which the author employed several 
years of toil. 

His Punishment. — To silence so audacious a scribbler, the Govern- 
ment expelled him from the University, degraded him from the bar, 
fined him £5,000, set him twice on the pillory, burned his book before 
his eyes by the common hangman, sentenced him to imprisonment for 
life, cut off both his ears, and burned upon both his cheeks the letters 
S. L., " Schismatic Libeller," but according to his own version. Stig- 
mata Laudis, " Marks of Praise." Such were some of the sweet per- 
suasives of argument in the " good old times ! " 

Hobbes. 

Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, achieved permanent distinction as a 
writer by a philosophical work called the Leviathan, in which he 
treats of the fundamental principles of political science. 

Career. — Hobbes was educated at Oxford ; travelled on the conti- 
nent several times, as tutor of the Prince of Wales (Charles IL), and 
of other young noblemen ; in 1654 returned permanently to England, 
and died at the country-seat of the Duke of Devonshire, in whose 
family he had served as tutor to three successive generations. 

Hobbes published a number of works, but his fame rests almost ex- 
clusively on his Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a 
Commonwealth. This treatise, which reduces all theory of govern- 
ment to blind submission to the ruling power, has been the subject of 
more attention and more denunciation than any other political work 
in the language. At the time of its appearance it was denounced by 
writers of all classes. His system of ethics was declared to be pure 
selfishness, reducing the conscience and emotions to a mere judgment 
of what succeeds or fails. Of late years, however, there has been a 
tendency to reopen the judgment passed upon Hobbes and to consider 
his positions more carefully. 

Sir Thomas Browne. 

Sir Thomas Browne, M. D., 1605-1682, was a profound thinker and 
a writer of robust English, though he had a fancy for using words 
of Latin origin, and especially for giving Latin titles to his works. 
His most celebrated production is Religio Medici, The Eeligion of a 
Physician. It was translated into the Latin, Italian, German, Dutch, 



MILTON AND HIS CONTE MPOR AKIE S . 71 

and French. As a sequel to this work, the author wrote Christian 
Morals, which is also in high repute. Another work is The Garden 
of Cyrus, or The Quincunxial Lozenge, in which the author displays 
his learning and his ingenuity in finding everywhere traces of this 
form : " quincunxes in heaven above, quincunxes in earth below, quin- 
cunxes in the mind of man, quincunxes in tones, in optic nerves, in 
roots of trees, in leaves, in everything." — Coleridge. " A reader, not 
watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine that decus- 
sation was the great business of the world, and that nature and art had 
no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx." — Johnson. 

Bishop Wilkins. 

John Wilkins, D. D., 1614-1672, Bishop of Chester, though eminent 
as a dignitary of the English Church, is chiefly and most favorably 
known as a philosophical writer. He was very zealous in the work 
of founding the Koyal Society, and published many works of a philo- 
sophical character. 

The following are his chief works : Essay towards a Real Charac- 
ter and a Philosophical Language, in which he anticipates the mod- 
ern phonographers ; Mercury, or The Swift and Secret Messenger, 
showing how a Man may with Privacy and Speed Communicate his 
Thoughts to a Friend at any Distance, which looks almost as if he 
had been on the verge of stumbling upon the Telegraph ; Discovery 
of a New World, a discourse tending to prove that it is probable there 
may be another habitable world in the moon, with a discourse con- 
cerning the possibility of a passage thither ; Discourse concerning a 
New Planet, proving that it is probable that our earth is one of the 
planets. 

Izaak Walton. 

Izaak Walton, 1593-1683, a quaint writer of this period, is held in 
great repute, especially for his Complete Angler. He appears to have 
been of humble birth, and followed the business of a linen-draper. 
Having acquired a competency, he retired from business, and lived 
thenceforth in leisure, devoting himself to angling and reading. 
Congeniality of sports, aided by his sweetness of temper, brought 
him in contact with many of the famous men of his times. The 
Complete Angler, though an unpretending volume, took at once, 
and has ever since held, a place among English classics. The book 
has so much of the author and his quaint, genial spirit, that it may 
almost be called an autobiography. Besides the Angler, Walton 



72 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

wrote Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert and Sanderson. 
These biographies vie in excellence with the Angler. They have 
ever been regarded as models of pure, easy composition. Walton's 
life must be regarded, in its tranquillity and simplicity, as a striking 
phenomenon, a perfect idyl, amidst the turmoil and passion of the 
Rebellion and the Restoration. 



III. THEOLOGICAL \A^RITERS. 

Jeremy Taylor. 

Jeremy Taylor, D. D., 1613-1667, is, by general consent, one of the 
greatest glories of the English pulpit. He may be considered as the 
Spenser of theological literature. He has the same boundless afflu- 
ence of imagination as Spenser, the same tendency to rambling dis- 
cursiveness in style, pardonable for the many exquisite nooks and 
corners of thought to which it so often leads, the same veneration for 
kingly and ecclesiastical pomp and state. 

His best known works are Holy Living, Holy Dying, Liberty of 
Prophesying, The Great Exemplar, or a Life of Christ, and a collec- 
tion of prayers, called The Golden Grove. His pen, however, was 
always busy, and his writings are enough to fill several large folios. 
They have been published, with a life by Heber, in 15 vols., 8vo. 

Bishop Hall. 

Joseph Hall, D. D., 1574-1656, an eminent scholar and divine, was 
educated at Cambridge, and rose through various ecclesiastical pre- 
ferments to be Bishop of Norwich. His principal works are the 
following : Satires, written in his youth ; Contemplations upon the 
Principal Passages in the New Testament ; and Episcopacy by Di- 
vine Eight. 

Usher. 

James Usher, 1580-1656, is one of the most distinguished names 
in the annals of the English Church. Usher's works are numerous, 
and were regarded by his contemporaries as marvels of research. It 
may be said of the majority of them, however, that the growth of . 
knowledge has thrown them decidedly into the shade. His Annals 
of the Old Testament, and his Sacred Chronology, were for a long 
time the standards of ecclesiastical chronology, and are even still 
followed in the marginal dates inserted in the Authorized Version of 
the English Bible. 



MILTON AND HIS CONT EMPOB ARIES . 73 

Fuller. 

Thomas Fuller, 1608-1661, the ecclesiastical historian of Great Brit- 
ain, is about as much known for his wit as for his learning. His 
voluminous works on church history, instead of being the dull, heavy 
reading that such works usually are, abound in a quaint, epigrammatic 
wit that makes them in a high degree entertaining and lively. 

His principal works are the following: The Church History of 
Great Britain, fol. ; History of the Worthies of England, fol. ; The 
Holy and the Profane State, fol. 

The Church History is perhaps too gossipy for the dignity of the 
subject, but it is at least not dull. The Worthies is a collection of 
biographies, often from original sources, and is a storehouse of valua- 
ble knowledge. The Holy and Profane State is likewise mainly 
biographical, — the first part, or Holy State, giving historical exam- 
ples for imitation, and the second part, or Profane State, giving ex- 
amples to be avoided. All his writings give evidence of varied 
learning, and all have the peculiar, epigrammatic turn already no- 
ticed. He has been censured by some for want of sound judgment as 
a historian. The criticism has some foundation. At the same time, 
it is hard to read a page of his writings and not to give him credit for 
entire honesty and good faith. 

Bishop Pearson. 

John Pearson, D. D., 1612-1686, a learned Bishop of the Church of 
England, acquired lasting fame by his Exposition of the Creed, which 
has become a classic in theological literature. It is studied as a text- 
book in most theological schools of the Episcopal Church. Pearson 
on the Creed and Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity usually stand on the 
same shelf. 

Cudworth. 

Kalph Cudworth, 1617-1688, a learned theologian of the English 
Church, is chiefly known by his great work, the Intellectual System 
of the Universe. This work was directed against the atheistical sys- 
tems of Hobbes and others. 

Cudworth was remarkable for his candor as a disputant ; indeed, 
he set forth the positions and arguments of his opponents with so 
much clearness "and force, that many zealots censured him for betray- 
ing the truth, and intimated that the arguments against religion which 
he first brought forward on behalf of its enemies were stronger than 
7 • 



74 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

those which he afterwards adduced of his own to upset them. Truth 
would be the gainer if she had more such right-minded champions. 

Barrow. 

Isaac Barrow, D. D., 1630-1677, was very highly distinguished both 
as a mathematician and a theologian. He was Professor of Mathe- 
matics in Cambridge, then Master of Trinity, and finally Vice-Chan- 
cellor of the University. His mathematical works are in Latin. His 
theological works, which are in English, first appeared in 3 vols, folio. 
They consist of Treatises on the Pope's Supremacy and on the Unity 
of the Church, and Sermons. His Sermons rank very high. 

No Sermons in the English language have received a more general 
verdict for almost every kind of excellence of which such compositions 
are susceptible. 

Howe. 

John Howe, 1630-1705, was, in the opinion of Robert Hall, " the 
greatest of the Puritan divines." Critics who do not accord to Howe 
so distinguished a place, are yet unanimous in considering him one 
of the greatest of theological writers. His writings are not so numerous 
as those of Baxter and others, and they are wanting in grace and ele- 
gance ; but they are regarded as surpassing those of all other Puritan 
divines in force, and in breadth of view. Robert Hall says: "I have 
learned far more from John Howe than from any other author I have 
ever read. There is an astonishing magnificence in his conceptions." 

His best known works are: The Living Temple; The Redeemer's 
Tears ; and The Redeemei-'s Dominion over the Invisible World. 

Baxter. 

Richard Baxter, D. D., 1615-1691, one of the leading Non-conform- 
ist divines, is said to *' have preached more sermons, engaged in more 
controversies, and written more books, than any other Non-conformist 
of the age," which is saying a good deal, as they were all voluminous 
writers. A selection of his works has been printed in 23 vols. 8vo. 

Of this immense mass, the greater part has gone into oblivion. It 
was not, indeed, like the writings of some voluminous authors, pon- 
derous and curious matter, meant only for the learned few, but it re- 
lated to the living issues of the times, and was addressed to readers at 
large. But tliose issues themselves mostly have passed away, and 
with them the literature of the occasion has ceased to exist except as a 
part of history. Two of Baxter's works, however, are a signal excep- 



MILTON AND HIS CONT EMPOR ARIES. 75 

tion to this remark. These are the Call to the Unconverted, and the 
Saints' Everlasting Best. These two treatises, abridged to suit modem 
wants, have passed through countless editions, and have continued to 
form a part of the religious literature of the English speaking race all 
over the world, and doubtless will do so to the end of time. Baxter 
was one of the busiest men of his time, and one of the most influential. 
But he is at this day, probably, exerting a wider influence by these 
two books than he did while living by all his multiplied labors. 

Ow^en. 

John Owen, D. D., 1616-1683, is generally considered the greatest 
of the Puritan divines. He was a man of great learning, and his 
industry was prodigious. His works fill 24 vols, large octavo. The 
two of most enduring character are the Commentary on the Hebrews, 
and the work on The Holy Spirit. 

Owen did not cultivate the graces of style, but there is always 
robustness in his argument. He discussed whatever subject he under- 
took as if he intended to leave nothing to be said by those who should 
come after him. With all the progress made since his time in the 
science of criticism and exegesis, no prudent commenator, even now, 
would undertake to expound the Epistle to the Hebrews without a 
constant reference to the work of Owen. In his writings of a practical 
character, he had a peculiarity, beyond all the other great writers of 
his school, of making his pious emotion dependent in all cases upon 
some solid scriptural basis. 

Bunyan. 

John Bunyan, 1628-1688, is, of all the writers of his age, the great- 
est marvel. With only the most limited opportunities of education, 
he produced a work which is one of the greatest classics, not merely 
of English literature, but of ail literature, ancient and modern. The 
Iliad itself is not more clearly a work for all time and all men than is 
the Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, the Bedfordshire tinker. 

Bunyan was an illiterate tinker, and in early life shockingly pro- 
fane. Being brought under strong religious conviction, he abandoned 
his former way of life, and became ever afterwards a most earnest and 
devoted Christian. The change in his religious character reacted, as 
in such cases it often does, upon his intellectual development ; and 
though he never attained to, nor indeed aimed at, the character of a 
learned man, he yet became a most powerful thinker and writer, his 
topics being limited chiefly to those drawn from the Bible and from 



76 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

religious experience, and he is second to none in the power of descrip- 
tion, or in the purity of his English. 

In one particular and most difficult department of writing, Allegory, 
he stands unrivalled, not only in English, but in all literature. 
Shakespeare is not so clearly the first of Dramatists, as is John Bunyan 
the Prince of Dreamers. His Dream of the Pilgrim's Progress is con- 
fessedly the greatest of Allegories, ancient or modem ; it has been 
translated into almost every language that has a religious literature 
of its own, and it probably has been more read, and been instrumental 
of more spiritual good, than any other book, the Bible only excepted. 

Bunyan has been called the Spenser of the unlearned, the Shake- 
speare of the religious world. He did not write for literary glory, but 
solely for the religious instruction of the rude people among whom he 
lived ; yet the highest literary authorities have bowed in reverence 
before the wonders of his art. 




l^i>^^ 




CHAPTER VIII. 

DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
(1675-1700.) 

The period included in this Chapter embraces the reigns of Charles 
II. and James II., 1660-1688, the final expulsion of the Stuarts, the 
Eevolution of 1688, and the reign of William and Mary, 1688-1702. 
It was, especially in its earlier part, a period of great licentiousness, 
of manners, which is but too faithfully reflected in much of its poetical 
and all of its dramatic literature. 

The authors of this period are, for convenience of description, 
divided into four Sections: 1. Poets, beginning with Dryden; 2. 
Philosophical and Miscellaneous writers, beginning with Locke ; 3. 
Theological writers, beginning with Tillotson ; 4. The Early Friends, 
beginning with George Fox, 



I. THE POETS. 

Dryden. 

John Dryden, 1631-1700, fills a larger space in English litera- 
ture than any other writer between the age of Milton and that of 
Pope and Addison. Dryden is confessedly one of the greatest of 
English poets ; and although there may be a question among critics 
as to his precise rank, his name is never omitted in any enumeration 
of our first-class authors. 

His Early History. — Dryden was born of an ancient family of the 
name of Driden. The change in the spelling of liis name was a fancy 
7* 77 



78 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

of his own. His parents were rigid Puritans. He was educated first 
at Westminster, under the famous Dr. Busby, and afterwards at Cam- 
bridge. He was early in life a great admirer of Cromwell, and his 
first poem of any note was Heroic Stanzas on the Late Lord Pro- 
tector, written on the occasion of Cromwell's death. They contain 
some passages in his happiest vein. Dryden, however, always wor- 
shipped the rising sun, and on the overthrow of the Commonwealth 
and the restoration of the Stuarts, he went over to the winning party 
and wrote his Astrsea Eedux, a poem of welcome to the new order 
of things. 

Dryden's Plays are twenty-nine in ntimber, and run through thirty- 
two years of his life, — from his thirty-first to his sixty-third year. 
All of his earlier plays are modelled after the French drama, which 
King Charles had made fashionable. They are in rhyming verse, are 
occupied solely by heroic and exalted personages, and filled with 
scenes of inflated and incongruous splendor. When this fashion was 
at its height, it received a rude shock from a lively parody. The 
Rehearsal, written by the Duke of Buckingham. Dryden's plays 
after this were more natural, and were written in blank verse, which 
he formerly had scouted as beneath the dignity of the drama. But 
in all his plays, rhyming or unrhyming, heroic or comic, he is fully 
open to the charge of immorality. 

Dryden wrote a poem, Eeligio Laici, the object of which was to 
defend the Church of England against dissenters. Towards the close 
of his life he embraced the Catholic religion, and wrote the Hind and 
Panther in defence of his new opinions. In this poem, the Hind is 
the Church of Rome ; the spotted Panther is the Church of England ; 
the Independents are bears, and the Calvinists are wolves, etc. His 
latest productions were poetical versions of portio^jis of Juvenal and 
Persius, and of the JSneid of Virgil. He wrote also, about the same 
time, his Fables, being imitations from Boccaccio and Chaucer. Very 
late in life, also, he wrote his Ode to St. Cecilia, the loftiest and most 
imaginative of all his compositions. 

His complete works were edited by Sir Walter Scott, in 18 vols., 8vo. 

Roscommon. 

Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, 1633-1684, a native of 
Ireland, was a nobleman of cultivated tastes and great purity of char- 
acter ; and he holds a respectable place among English poets. He 
wrote Odes, Prologues, etc. ; translated Dies Irae, and Horace's Art 
of Poetry ; and wrote an Essay on Translated Verse. He seems to 



DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 79 

have been about the only -writer of his time who \yas thoroughly pure 
and moral. 

Dorset. 

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, 1637-1706, a nobleman of gay 
life and easy manners, wrote a few songs which were -very popular, 
and some satires which "sparkled with wit as splendid as that of 
Butler." — Macaulay. 

Dramatic Writers. 

Several dramatic writers contemporary with Dryden are worthy of 
note. Among these may be named the following : Thoxas Otway, 
1651-1685, Avho began as an actor in London, but, not meeting with 
much success, betook himself to writing plays, partly original, partly 
translations or imitations from the French. Many of his plays were 
successful at the time, but only two have maintained their reputation 
among readers and actors of the present day, viz. : The Orphan, and 
Venice Preserved. Otway was improvident by nature, and died young 
in very indigent circumstances. Tho:.ias Shadwell, 1640-1692, who 
was crowned poet laureate, and who had some slight poetic ability and 
some wit, but is now known chiefly by the ridicule heaped on him by 
Dryden. Nathaxiel Lee, 1658-1691, who gained notoriety as much 
by the irregularities of his life as by his genius, was the author of 
eleven dramas, all tragedias but one. Owing to his habits of intem- 
perance he became insane, was for a time in Bedlam, and was finally 
killed in a street-brawl. 



II. PHILOSOPHICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. 

Locke. 

John Locke, 1632-1704, is one of the names always quoted in speak- 
ing of the great thinkers who have largely influenced the current of 
English opinion on science, morals, or religion. 

By the circumstances of his life he was thrown into connection with 
the statesmen to whom the public aflfairs of the nation were subjects of 
controlling practical interest. His thoughts consequently were much 
occupied with questions of this kind, and though not a professed po- 
litical writer, in the sense of being a partisan, he yet wrote several 
treatises on political subjects. Among these may be named particu- 
larly his Letters on Toleration, giving views in regard to political lib- 
erty much in advance of his times. He "^Trote also Thotights concern- 



80 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ing Education, a treatise which, though containing some things now 
ascertained to be impracticable, has yet many vakiable suggestions, and 
is an important part of the literature of that subject. 

The great work of his life, however, was An Essay concerning the 
Human Understanding. He was occupied with this, at intervals, for 
eighteen years. It gave him rank as a philosopher and metaphysician 
of world-wide celebrity, causing his name to be associated with those 
of Bacon and Newton as leaders of human thought. The theory 
which Locke undertook to explode was the old doctrine of innate 
ideas, and the theory which he proposed in its place was that all hu- 
man knowledge begins with sensation. This theory, which for a time 
obtained almost universal ascendency, has been materially modified 
since his day, and he himself is no longer acknowledged as a leader 
in any school of philosophy. But he did a great service by his unan- 
swerable refutation of many errors which up to that time held undis- 
puted sway, and by the example which he gave of a more rational 
way of treating metaphysical subjects. 

Locke's Essay, on account of the freshness and vigor of its style, 
held its place as a text-book in institutions of learning much longer 
than it otherwise would have done. While he makes no pretence to 
ornament, and never runs into smooth phrase or rounded periods, he 
avoids most sedulously the uncouth and abstruse jargon of the older 
writers on metaphysics, and aims everywhere to make his meaning 
plain and obvious to the common understanding. His diction is that 
of the common people, his illustrations are drawn from common life. 
His book, even in the abstrusest parts of it, is entertaining. 

Boyle. 

Hon. Eobert Boyle, 1627-1691, son of the " Great Earl of Cork," is 
greatly distinguished as an experimental pliilosopher, of the school of 
Bacon, and as the chief founder of the Eoyal Society. Boyle was a 
very devout man, and though strongly tempted to enter into political 
life, he steadily declined, and gave himself entirely to the cultivation 
of science and the practice of religious duties, and at his death he 
bequeathed a fand for the endowment of an annual course of lectures 
in defence of the Christian religion. These lectures began in 1692, one 
hundred and eighty years ago. Many of them have been printed. 
They form a valuable series of works on the evidences of Christianity. 
Mr. Boyle himself wrote several works of the same sort, and studied 
the Hebrew and Greek languages for the sake of qualifying himself 
better to write on this subject. After his death, his works were col- 
lected and published in 5 vols., fol. 



DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 81 

Temple. 

Sir William Temple, 1628-1699, a well-known English diplomatist, 
attained distinction as a writer. Temple's works fall into two classes, 
Memoirs and Miscellanies. The former consist chiefly of letters and 
autobiographical essays. The latter comprise his detached essays on 
various topics. One of them, the Essay on Ancient Learning, has at- 
tained considerable notoriety from the circumstance that its author was 
totally unfamiliar with the subject, and betrayed his ignorance. Tem- 
ple's chief merit consists in his style, which has received the almost 
universal praise of critics. 

Evelyn. 

John Evelyn, F.E.S., 1620-1705, is chiefly known by his Sylva, or 
a Discourse on Forest Trees. He was one of the earliest members of 
the Royal Society ; his work on forest trees was written at their re- 
quest, and was the first work published by them. It was written in 
view of the rapid destruction and disappearance of the forest trees in 
England, and of the importance of maintaining a proper amount of 
timber on the island, in order to the naval supremacy of the nation. 
The work was a seasonable one, and it seems to have had the desired 
efiect. 

III. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. 

Tillotson. 

John Tillotson, D.D., 1630-1694, was greatly distinguished as a 
pulpit orator. His Sermons were considered the highest models of 
pulpit eloquence ; and though not now held in so great estimation as 
they once were, they still have an honored place in English literature. 
Tillotson was born of Puritan stock, but early left the Presbyterians 
and conformed to the Church of England. He was educated at Cam- 
bridge, and rose through a long series of promotions until he became 
Archbishop of Canterbury. He is universally esteemed as one of the 
great lights of the English Church. His special distinctions were his 
moderation and good sense as an ecclesiast, and his eloquence as a 
preacher. His reputation in the latter point was prodigious during 
his life, and for one or two generations after his decease. His col- 
lected works, chiefly Sermons, have been frequently printed, formerly 
in 3 vols., folio, latterly in 12 vols., 8vo. 

F 



82 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

South. 

Kobert South, D. D., 1633-1716, is generally regarded as the most 
eloquent preacher of his day. He was a zealous Royalist and Epis- 
copalian, and waged unsparing war upon the Puritans with his tongue 
and with his pen. South' s chief distinction was as a preacher. His 
sermons are masterpieces of vigorous sense and sound English, though 
not altogether as decorous as modern taste requires in pulpit dis- 
courses. His works, chiefly sermons, have been published in 5 vols., 
8vo. 

Stillingfleet. 

Edward Stillingfleet, 1635-1G99, was a learned Bishop of the Church 
of England. He was the author of numerous treatises on theological 
subjects, and after his death his Works were published in 6 vols,, fol. 
The most elaborate and important were the following : Origines Sacrss, 
or A Rational Account of the Grounds of Natural and Revealed Reli- 
gion ; Origines Britannica3, or The Antiquities of the British Churches. 

Beveridge. 

William Beveridge, D.D., 1637-1708, a Bishop of the English 
Church, was the author of several theological treatises in Latin, and 
of numerous works in English, the latter being chiefly on the practical 
duties of religion. The most esteemed of his devotional treatises is 
his Private Thoughts upon Religion. His English works have been 
printed in 9 vols., 8vo. 

Bishop Ken. 

Thomas Ken, D. D., 1637-1710, a learned and amiable Bishop of 
the Church of England, is especially noted for his devotional works. 
The familiar long-metre doxology, " Praise God from whom all bless- 
ings flow," is the composition of this good prelate, being the conclud- 
ing verse of his three hymns for Morning, Evening, and Midnight, 
It is, of itself, sufiicient to give him a lasting place in the memory of 
all God's people. 

Matthew Henry. 

Matthew Henry, 1662-1714, one of the leading Non-conformist 
divines of the seventeenth century, is chiefly known as a commenta- 
tor on the Scriptures. Henry's Commentary has passed through al- 
. most innumerable editions, both in England and America. The 
London Religious Tract Society, 1831-1835, published a Commentary 



DRY DEIST AXD HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 83 

made up of selections from Henry and Scott, wliich had a prodigious 
sale. As a work replete with devout thoughts, often expressed with 
a peculiar verbal antithesis which adds to their piquancy and force, 
Henry's Commentary is unrivalled. But the lack of that philological 
and linguistic knowledge which must be the basis of all true biblical 
comment, and the rise since his time of a different and better style of 
exegesis, have caused his work, with all its merits, to be gradually 
superseded. 

IV. THE EARLY FRIENDS. 

George Fox. 

George Fox, 1624-1690, the founder of the Society of Friends, was 
chiefly distinguished by his apostolic zeal and labors as a preacher. 
He has also claims to consideration as a writer, both for the amount 
arid character of his writings, and for the relation which they bear to 
a large and influential society of Christians. The following are his 
principal works : Journal of his Life and Travels ; Collection of 
Christian Epistles, Letters, and Testimonies ; Gospel Truth Demon- 
strated in a Collection of Doctrinal Books, etc. Fox's Journal par- 
ticularly is worthy of commendation. 

Barclay. 

Eobert Barclay, 1648-1690, was an early member and the most re- 
nowned apologist of the Society of Friends. Barclay was of noble 
family, and received a thorough education. He attended the Scots 
College in Paris, of which his uncle was principal, and while there 
became thoroughly adept in the French and Latin tongues, speaking 
and writing them with facility. Subsequently he gained a knowledge 
of Greek and Hebrew. Having more education than most of the 
early leaders of the Society, it fell to his lot to be their champion by 
the pen. As in those days George Fox was their chief preacher, so 
Barclay was their chief writer. The greatest of all his works was An 
Apology for the True Cliristian Divinity, as the same is held forth and 
preached by the People called in Scorn, Quakers. Barclay's Apology 
is an acknowledged classic in the theological literature of the Society. 
It has been translated into most of the languages of Europe. 

William Penn. 

William Penn, 1644-1718, the founder of Pennsylvania, was, next 
to Barclay, the ablest advocate and exponent of the doctrines of the 



84 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Friends. His distinguished social position, and his eminent public 
services, if they did not add to the force of his arguments, gained for 
them respectful attention, and helped to give protection and security 
"to the rising sect. 

Penn's writings were numerous and exerted a powerful influence. 
They were published in a collected form in 1728, in 2 vols., folio. 
Those of most note are No Cross, No Crown ; Quakerism a New 
Name for Old Christianity ; The Great Law of Liberty of Conscience 
Debated and Defended. 

Colonization Scheme. — One item in the property which Penn inher- 
ited from his father was a claim against the Government of £16,000 
for services rendered. Believing that he could best realize his views 
in regard to religious and civil liberty in a new country, he sold his 
claim to the Government for the territory which afterwards became 
the Province of Pennsylvania, with the right to colonize the same. 
Penn came to his new colony in 1682, and remained until 1684, regu- 
lating its affairs. Returning to England, he took an active part in the 
political affairs of England, and was a great favorite with James II. 





CHAPTER IX. 
Pope and his Contemporaries. 

(1700-1740.) 

The eighteenth century opens with the reign of Queen Anne, the 
last of the Stuart sovereigns, 1702-1714, followed by the reign of 
George I., the first of the Brunswick dynasty, 1714-1727. 

The first third of the century is made illustrious by many great 
names in literature. For convenience of treatment, these are consid- 
ered under four heads, or sections : 1. The Poets, beginning with 
Pope ; 2. The Dramatists, beginning with Wycherley ; 3. The Prose 
writers, beginning with Addison; 4. Theological writers, beginning 
with Butler. 

I. THE POETS. 

Pope. 

Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, reigned supreme in the domain of 
letters during all the first part of the eighteenth century. His poetry 
has not the naturalness and simplicity of Chaucer's, the universality 
of Shakespeare's, the majestic and solemn earnestness of Milton's, or 
even the freedom and breadth of Dry den's, nor did it so appeal to the 
consciousness of the national heart as that of the school which sprang 
up near the close of the century. It was to a certain degree artificial. 
Yet its art, it must be confessed, was consummate, and within the 
scope to which it was limited, it reached a perfection which has never 
been surpassed. It was pre-eminently the poetry of the wits. But it 
could not touch, it never touched, the national heart, like the poetry 
of Cowper and of Burns. 

Pope's chief works, given in nearly the order of their composition, 
8 - 85 



Qb ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

are : Pastorals, written bv him at tlie age of sixteen ; Essay on Criti- 
cism ; Eape of the Lock ; Messiah ; Translations of the Iliad and the 
Odrssey (in which latter he was aided by Broome and Fenton) ; Essay 
on Man ; and The Dunciad. 

There was a time when Pope's poetry was considered the model of 
thought and expression. Throughout the entire eighteenth century 
his lines were regarded by all, except his personal enemies, as stamped 
with profound genius. The modern school of criticism, however, has 
put a different estimate upon Pope's merit. It has denied him any 
equality with the great poets, with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, 
and scarcely even allowed him the first place among the second-rate 
poets. 

Pope's works are marred by conventionalism and would-be neatness. 
Rarely if ever does the poet rise to any flight of passion. His uniform 
use of the rhyming heroic couplet becomes excessively monotonous ; 
every couplet and line is so nicely turned and so carefully balanced, 
that the reader longs for an occasional irregularity. Pope is undoubt- 
edly witty and sarcastic. The tendency to point and polish, which 
disqualified him for being a true epic poet, has made him the most 
successful epigrammatist in the language. Ko one has ever equalled 
him in the art of turning a couplet. 

The reader will search in vain in Pope for any of those broad 
strokes whereby a truly grand poet delineates a character or suggests 
a profound truth, any up-welling of emotion, any daring flight of im- 
agination, any sweet play of humor. Still, Pope will remain what he 
has ever been, an elegant writer of English. His correctness in the 
structure of phrases and the choice of words, his avoidance of every- 
thing bizarre, render him a safe model of study for those whose style 
is still crude. Pope's verse can scarcely be a stimulant, but it may 
prove a wholesome corrective. 

Pope's Translation of Homer is accurate enough; and yet it is not 
Homer, for the simple reason that Homer is pre-eminently the naive 
poet and Pope is the perfect type of the conventional poet. There is 
not the slightest touch of sympathy between them. The Essay on 
Man contains an immense number of excellent precepts couched in 
excellent couplets, any one of which by itself would be perfect, but 
which taken together form a sermon rather than a poem. The Rape 
of the Lock displays more fancy and conceit than imagination. Abe- 
lard and Eloise find the fire of their passion dampened materially by 
the I*oj)ean measure. The Dunciad is probably Pope's best work. In 
it he had the opportunity of exhibiting to the full his peculiar jDowers 
of satire, and the success of his poison-tipped, winged couplets may be 
estimated by the commotion and wrath which they aroused. 



POPE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 87 

Prior. 

Matthew Prior, 1664-1721, was a poet of considerable celebrity in 
the reign of Queen Anne. Prior's writings are not numerous. The 
best known longer works are: The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, 
written by Prior and Montagu together, being a satire upon Dryden's 
Hind and Panther; liis Carmen Seculare, a panegyric on William 
III.; Solomon, and Alma, written in prison. His short, fugitive 
pieces, however, are generally considered preferable. The more elab- 
orate poems are heavy, and spoiled by the conceits of the age. But 
the tales and apologues are light, graceful, sparkling, and in the tone 
of good society. 

Gay. 

John Gay, 1688-1732, was one of several poets whose names and 
fortunes are linked in history with those of Pope and Swift. His first 
publication. Rural Sports, did not meet with much success. His next, 
the Shepherd's Week, in Six Pastorals, intended to ridicule Ambrose 
Philips, contained so much genuine comic humor, and such j)leasant 
pictures of country life, that it became popular on its own account, 
rather than for its ridicule of another. Trivia, or the Art of Walking 
the Streets of London, is in the mock-heroic style, giving an account 
of the dangers encountered in walking through the crowded streets of 
the metropolis. After several attempts at opera, with only doubtful 
success, he wrote the Beggar's Opera, in which the principal charac- 
ters are thieves and highwaymen. It had unbounded success, being 
played for sixty-three nights, and it still holds its place occasionally 
upon the stage. The Beggar's Opera is decidedly objectionable, on 
account of the looseness of its morals. It is simply employing the 
arts of music and song to make the life of a highwayman appear agree- 
able and attractive, and its representation has always been followed by 
an increase of crime. Gay has been called, indeed, the " Orpheus of 
Highwaymen." 

Before writing the Beggar's Opera, and while in straitened circum- 
stances, he wrote a volume of Fables. They are the most pleasing of 
all his works, and the only ones that have any enduring hold upon the 
public mind, except his ballad of Black-Eyed Susan. 

Philips. 

Ambrose Philips, 1675-1749, was a poet and dramatic writer of 
considerable note. He was the author of some pastorals, a tragedy 



88 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

called The Distressed Mother, a translation of Sappho's Hymn to 
Venus, and a series of " poems of short lines," or character-pictures 
of the leading personages of the day. 

Parnell. 

Thomas Parnell, 1679-1718, is another of the minor British poets 
of the early part of the eighteenth century. Some of his poems, such 
as The Hermit, and the Hymn to Contentment, maintain a permanent 
position among the choice pieces of English literature. 

Thomson. 

James Thomson, 1700-1748, is the best of the descriptive poets of 
this period. His Seasons, and his Castle of Indolence, have taken a 
permanent place in literature. He is one of those minor poets who 
are read by each successive generation with about equal favor. His 
fame is as high now as it was during his lifetime, perhaps higher. 
His descriptions of English scenery, because of their faithfulness to 
nature, are much read by foreigners, especially by Germans. 

Robert Blair. 

Rev. Robert Blair, 1699-1747, was a Scotch poet and clergyman, 
distantly related to Dr. Hugh Blair, and the author of a poem of 
some note, called The Grave. Blair's Grave was once much read, but 
later and better works have pretty much crowded it aside. It is now 
rarely found except on the upper shelves consecrated to forgotten 
worthies. 

II. THE DRAMATISTS. 

A school of dramatists prevailed in the period now under consid- 
eration, who were equally distinguished by their abilities and their 
licentiousness. The writers of this class belong partly to the previous 
century, as they began their career during the life of Dryden, and 
took their character from the general corruption of manners which 
prevailed after the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. The four most 
conspicuous of these writers were Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, 
and Farquhar, of whom Wycherley was the earliest, and Congreve was, 
by general consent, the greatest. With these writers is indissolubly 
connected the name of Jeremy Collier, the man who, almost single- 
handed, undertook to stem this general torrent of licentiousness, and 
who so effectually exposed the enormous immoralities of the stage as 



POPE AND HIS COXTEMPORAEIES. 89 

to arouse tlie nation to a sense of shame, and to bring back dramatic 
literature once more within the decencies and ^proprieties of life. 

Wyelierley. 

William Wycherley, 1640-1710, ^ras a prominent dramatist of the 
age of the Eestoration, and the founder of the school of licentious and 
immoral plays which then prevailed. 

The best known of his dramas are Lore in a Wood, The Gentlemin 
D.incing-Master, The Country Wife, and The Plain Dealer. He also 
published a volume of Miscellaneous Poems, which Macaulay disposes 
of by the trenchant phrase, " this bulky volume of obscene doggerel." 
" The only thing original about Wycherley, the only thing which he 
could farnish from his own mind in inexhaustible abundance, was 
profligacy." — Macaulay. 

Congreve. 

William Congreve, 1666-1729, a native of Ireland, excelled all the 
men of his generation as a writer of the licentious and immoral plays then 
in fashion. At the bringing out of his first play. The Old Bachelor, 
which could not now be read aloud in any family circle, Congreve had 
the support of all the great theatrical celebrities, !Mr. Betterton, ^Ir. 
Powel, Mrs. Bracegirdle, Mrs. Barry; his play was commended by 
Dryden, as being the best he had ever heard; he received official re- 
cognition from the Government, in the bestowal by Lord Halifax of a 
lucrative office in the Customs ; the public were in ecstasies. 

Vanbrugh. 

Si» John Vanbrugh, 1666-1726, another of those corrupt dramatists, 
was about equally distinguished as a writer and an arcliitect. His two 
best known plays are The Eelapse, and The Provoked Wife. He pos- 
sessed all the merits and demerits of his age. HKs jjlays abound in 
wit and strokes of comic delineation, but are all disfigured by their 
tone of profligacy. Like Wycherley and Congreve, Vanbrugh failed 
to rise superior to the manners of the reign of Queen Anne, although 
he is perhaps not so wholly abandoned to them as were many of his 
contemporaries. 

Farquhar. 

George Farquhar, 1678-1707, was another dramatic writer of note. 
He was an Lishman by birth, and entered Trinity College, Dublin, but 
abandoned study and turned player. After playing for some time, he 



90 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

began writing for the stage, and with marked success. His plays are 
all in the comic vein, either Comedies or Farces, and like the other 
dramas of those days are licentious and immoral. 

Jeremy Collier. 

Jeremy Collier, 1650-1726, an English Nonjuring Bishop, and a 
man of great celebrity, had in a high degree what the English call 
pluck, and neither fear nor favor could make him swerve a hair from 
what he deemed to be right and true. Collier was not a dramatist, but 
he is considered in this connection, because his greatest celebrity grew 
out of the battle which he had with the play-writers. The work to 
which reference has been made v/as A Short View of the Profaneness 
and Immorality of the Stage. At no time in the history of the world 
has there been a stage so corrupt and licentious as that of England 
after the downfall of the Puritans and the return of the Stuarts to power. 
Collier attacked the monstrous evil. His essay threw the whole lit- 
erary world into commotion. Some of the dramatists attempted a 
reply, but their defence was lame. The victory was overwhelming. 
After fighting and floundering for some years, these indecent writers 
were either silenced, or were obliged to reform the character of their 
plays ; and the English drama ever since has been of a more elevated 
stamp, in consequence of the terrible castigation which it then received. 

III. THE PROSE WRITERS. 

Addison. 

Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, one of the greatest ornaments of Eng- 
lish literature, excelled, as did some others to be mentioned in this 
section, both in prose and verse. His greatest distinction, however, 
was as a writer of prose. He is generally accepted as the prince of 
English Essayists, and his Essays in The Spectator are held to be the 
finest models in the language of that style of writing. 

Addison had every advantage of education which the University of 
Oxford and the best preparatory schools in England could furnish, and 
he very early gave evidence of that elegant scholarship and refined 
taste which marked all his productions. He entered tlie University at 
the age of fifteen, and greatly distinguished himself there by his dili- 
gence and scholarship. He began his career as an author at the age 
of twenty-two, and he continued to write and publish, both in prose 
and verse, to the time of his death. 

A poem addressed to King William on one of his campaigns, and 



POPE AND HIS CONTEMPOEARIES. 91 

■written at the age of twenty-three, secured to the young author an an- 
nual pension of £300. At the age of twenty-eight he visited Italy, 
where he remained for two or three years. On the death of the King, 
and the discontinuance of the pension, Addison was obliged to look 
about him for some other means of subsistence. Not long after, how- 
ever, he was applied to by the leaders of the Government under the 
new sovereign to write a poem commemorative of the celebrated battle 
of Blenheim. The task was undertaken by Addison, and the poem, 
called The Campaign, gave great satisfaction, and led to a long series 
of political preferments. 

Addison's writings, both prose and poetical, are very numerous. The 
poems best known are The Campaign, already mentioned, and the 
tragedy of Cato. His principal prose writings are essays contributed 
to The Tatler and The Spectator. It is as an Essayist that his pecu- 
liar excellencies appear to the greatest advantage. His contributions 
to the papers just named, particularly those to The Spectator, of which 
paper he was the originator, are generally conceded to be the best 
specimens of essay writing to be found in the language, and they are 
held up by the most eminent critics as models of style. 

Among the smaller poems of Addison are four of the nature of 
hymns, which seem absolutely perfect, and which have found their 
way into the hymn-books of nearly every Christian Church. These 
are " The Lord my pasture shall prepare," " When all thy mercies, O 
my God," " The spacious firmament on high," and " When rising from 
the bed of death." They were all published originally in The Spectator. 

Steele. 

Sir Eichard Steele, 1671-1729, is the writer of this age who comes 
nearest to the peculiar qualities and the matchless excellence of Addison. 
Like Addison, too, Steele's chief distinction is as an Essayist. In the 
Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, Steele's papers rank very little below 
those of his great compeer. If Addison is clearly the first, Steele is 
with equal clearness the second, of English Essayists. 

Steele was a native of Ireland. He was educated at the Charter- 
house School, and afterwards at Oxford, but did not obtain his degree. 
He enlisted in the Horse-Guards, and rose to the rank of captain. 
During this period of his life, and also subsequently, though in a less 
degree, he was idle, dissipated, and extravagant. 

Steele took an active part in politics, and entered Parliament as 
a champion of the Whig party. He was expelled from the House 
for his political pamphlet entitled The Crisis, in which he set forth 



92 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

freely the great dangers to which the Protestant cause was exposed. 
On the accession of the House of Hanover, Steele came into favor, 
was returned to Parliament, and made a baronet. 

Steele projected successively the Tatler, the Spectator, and the 
Guardian. In these several undertakings he was largely assisted by 
Addison, and in the Spectator the latter's share was, it is well known, 
the largest. As an author Steele's reputation rests chiefly upon his 
essays. His comedies were comparatively unsuccessful. But as an 
essayist his fame will be lasting. To the Tatler, the Spectator, and 
the Guardian he contributed respectively 188, 240, and 82 papers. He 
and Addison may be justly regarded as the founders of the easy and 
graceful essay style of English prose, equally removed from the 
weighty and involved periods of Milton and the puerile conceits of 
the Restoration. 

Swift. 

Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745, was, of all the writers of the age in 
which he lived, the one possessing the greatest originality and power. 
His peculiarities, however, both as a writer and as a man, were no 
less marked, and mostly not of an agreeable character. Hence he has 
been, deservedly, less esteemed than most of his distinguished con- 
temporaries, by those who have been free to admit his transcendent 
abilities. 

This unique personage in English letters was born in Dublin, of 
English parents, several months after the death of his father. Young 
Swift was supported by relatives, and sent by them to school and 
afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin. Here he did not improve his 
time after the orthodox fashion, but was chiefly occupied in writing 
political and personal satires. After remaining seven years at college 
he removed to England, and entered the service of Sir William Temple 
as private secretary. He remained in this position about ten years. 

A large part of Swift's writings were of a partisan character, on the 
politics of the day. For his services in this respect he was made 
Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin. He is usually designated as "Dean 
Swift." The most celebrated of his political writings was the Dra- 
pier's Letters, criticising the English Government in regard to Irish 
affairs. Another pamphlet which gained much notoriety was the 
Modest Proposal. This was an ironical satire on the English govern- 
ment of Ireland, in which tke author gravely proposes to relieve the 
public distress by making the children of the poor serve as food for 
the rich. 

For the last two or three years of his life he was hopelessly insane. 



POPE AND HIS CO XTEMPOE ARIES. 93 

The works by -which he is best known are Gulliver's Travels and 
the Tale of a Tub. 

As a writer, Swift is without a parallel in English letters. No one 
since the days of Rabelais has equalled him in humor and satire. His 
style is a model of clear, forcible expression, displaying a consummate 
knowledge of the foibles and vices of mankind. He has no sympathy 
with the grander flights of the imagination ; he never rises above the 
earth. But in his sphere he is inimitable. Much of the coarseness 
that disfigures his writings is due to the spirit of the age — but not all. 
Swift would have been coarse in any age. In his manners Swift was 
taciturn and unmoved, even amidst the laughter that his own humor 
had produced, sparing no one with his satire, yet of a not unkindly 
disposition to those who knew him well, and as shrewd and original 
in his conversation as in his writings. 

Arbuthnot. 

John Arbuthnot, M. D., 1675-1734, was one of that brilliant circle 
of authors and wits, of which Pope and Swift were the central figures. 
The Scriblerus Club, formed in 1714, counted among its members Ar- 
buthnot, Swift, Pope, Gray, Congreve, Atterbury, and Harley. Their 
object, according to Pope, was "to ridicule all the false tastes in learn- 
ing, under the character of a man of capacity enough, that had dipped 
into every art and science, but injudiciously in each." The club did 
not continue long, but it gave birth to the following works : The First 
Book of Martinus Scriblerus (by Arbuthnot) ; The Travels of Gulli- 
ver (by Swift); and The Art of Sinking (by Pope). Arbuthnot's 
most brilliant performance was a work of humor, entitled The His- 
tory of .John Bull, and intended to ridicule the Duke of Marlborough. 
Arbuthnot was a general favorite among the brilliant authors with 
whom he was associated. They were filled with jealousies of each 
other, but they all speak in terms of admiration and kindness of him. 

Shaftesbury. 

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671-1713, Was a 
statesman and wi'iter of illustrious descent, and of equally illustrious 
abilities. 

Shaftesbury's writings are numerous, and have been held in high 
estimation, notwithstanding their faults of style. His best known 
work is Characteristics of Men, Matters, Opinions, and Times, 3 vols., 
8vo. He was educated under the special care of John Locke. As 
a statesman, he was much trusted by King William. "VVarburton 



94 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

scented infidelity in the Characteristics, but the sober judgment of 
subsequent and abler critics has not confirmed the suspicion. Shaftes- 
bury's chief fault of style is a want of simplicity. " His lordship can 
express nothing with simplicity. He seems to have considered it vul- 
gar, and beneath the dignity of a man of quality, to speak like other 
men." — Blair. 

Bolingbroke. 

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, 1678-1751, was a political 
writer and speaker, contemporary with Pope, Swift, and Addison. 
Bolingbroke, if not the ablest and most profound, was at least the 
most brilliant of the illustrious company of authors that flourished in 
the early part of the eighteenth century. He owed no little of his 
celebrity, in his own time, to his fascinating manners, the charm of 
his conversation, and even his personal beauty. It is not to be denied, 
however, that he had talents of a very high order, though he used 
them for ends thoroughly selfish and often ignoble, and he has left 
behind no monument of genius worthy of the large space which he 
occupied in the public estimation while he lived. His youth was no- 
torious for its profligacy and libertinism, his meridian of public life 
was one of splendid intrigue rather than of statesmanship, and he 
bequeathed in dying a posthumous work of an irreligious character, 
which he had not the courage to avow when living. 

Bolingbroke's literary executor, David Mallet, brought out a sump- 
tuous edition of his lordship's works, in 1754, in 5 vols., 4to. The 
works which obtained the greatest notoriety were the Idea of a Pa- 
triot King, and the Study and Use of History. In reference to the 
works of a sceptical kind which Bolingbroke left to Mallet to be pub- 
lished posthumously, Dr. Johnson said : '^ Sir, he was a scoundrel and 
a coward : a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion 
and morality ; a coward, because he had not the resolution to fire it 
off" himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw 
the trigger after his death." 

Bishop Atterbury. 

Francis Atterbury, 1662-1732, Bishop of Eochester, was the inti- 
mate friend and associate of Swift, Pope, Bolingbroke, and the other 
eminent men of that day. He was a man of brilliant parts, bold and 
self-reliant in temper, always ready to lend a hand in a literary or a 
political contest, and better fitted for such work probably than for 
that to which he was ordained. His sermons, however, are exceed- 
ingly able, and in a literary view are among the best that we have. 



POPE AND HIS CONTEMPOPvARIES. 95 

He took an active part in the controversy between Bentley and Bovle 
about the authenticity of the Epistles of Phalaris, more than half of 
Boyle's portion being written by Atterbury. 

Bishop Berkeley. 

George Berkeley, D. D., 1684-1753, Bishop of Cloyne, was highly 
distinguished as a philanthropist and a philosophical writer. Berke- 
ley was a native of Ireland and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin ; 
and the associate of Pope, Swift, Addison, Steele, Atterbury, and 
Arbuthnot. Among his philanthropic schemes was one for the con- 
version of the American savages, and as preparator}^ to this, the found- 
ing of a University in the Bermudas. He obtained a Parliamentary 
grant of £20,000 for this purpose, and several large private subscrip- 
tions. A charter was granted, providing for the appointment of a 
President and nine Fellows. The Queen offered Berkeley a Bishopric, 
if he would remain at home, but he preferred the headship of his new 
College, and sailed for America. He remained in Newport, E. L, for 
two years, waiting for the arrival of the money promised by the Gov- 
ernment, Finding that it was not likely to come at all, he returned 
to England, leaving behind him in the new world pleasant memories 
of his sojourn. 

Berkeley's works of greatest note were those in which he published 
his leading philosophical idea, denying the existence of matter. This 
idea was first set forth in the New Theory of Vision, and then more 
fully in the Principles of Human Knowledge. The Bishop's essays 
made a profound impression,' and modified perceptibly the current of 
metaphysical opinion, though his views did not meet general accept- 
ance. Another work of his, the Minute Philosopher, written during 
his residence at Newport, is a defence of religion against the various 
forms of infidelity, and is highly spoken of. The Bishop published 
also several essays on the use of Tar Water, and had a renowned con- 
troversy on the subject, Berkeley is spoken of in terms of mi wonted 
commendation, not only by the distinguished men of his own day, 
who seem to have been charmed by the benevolence and genial 
warmth of his private character, but by astute critics, such as Dugald 
Stewart and Sir James Mackintosh. 

No single writing of Berkeley's is so well known as the brief poem 
which he wrote under the enthusiasm excited by the prospect of his 
going to the new world to found his University. The last stanza seems 
to have been prophetic : 



96 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 

Bentley. 

Eichard Bentley, D. D., 1661-1742, Master of Trinity College, and 
Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, is probably the greatest 
classical critic that England has yet produced. He is often called the 
British Aristarchus. 

Bentley's chief work was his Dissertation upon the Epistles of Pha- 
laris, in which he undertook to prove that those and certain other oft 
quoted ancient documents were modern forgeries. The discussion ex- 
cited a furious controversy, in which nearly all the great scholars and 
wits of the nation were enrolled against him, — Boyle, Atterbury, Con- 
yers Middleton, Pope, Swift, and the whole posse of scholars hailing 
from Oxford, to which rival University Boyle, his nominal antagonist, 
belonged. Bentley held his ground single-handed against them all, 
and in the course of the argument displayed such amazing resources 
of learning, and such critical acumen, as raised him to the highest 
pinnacle of fame as a classical scholar and a critic. 

Two other works of Bentley's which also gained him great applause, 
and for which his critical learning and abilities were well adapted, were 
his Editions of Horace and Terence. He began also a new critical edi- 
tion of Homer, but did not live to complete it. His design was to re- 
store to the text the old Greek Digamma, a letter which has been dropped 
in all modern editions of the poet. Bentley was the most skilful of all 
critics in the matter of conjectural emendation. He was bold even to 
audacity in this respect, and yet his most important emendations have 
stood the test of scrutiny, and have for the most part become a part of 
the received text of the authors so amended. 

Boyle. 

Hon. Charles Boyle, 1676-1731, Earl of Orrery, and nephew of the 
celebrated philosopher, Robert Boyle, was himself a man of distin- 
guished abilities, and was held in high estimation by the dignitaries at 
Oxford, and by Swift, Atterbury, Pope, and others. Boyle published 
an edition of the Epistles of Phalaris, and in an evil hour was tempted 
into a controversy with Bentley, in regard to their authenticity. At- 
terbury helped him in his defence, writing, it is supposed, the greater 



POPE AND HIS CONTEMPOEARIES. 97 

part of it, and all of that set joined in the hue and cry against the 
merciless critic. But jibes and sarcasms were no protection against 
the "swashing blows" delivered by Bentley, 

Conyers Middleton. 

Conyers Middleton, 1683-1750, was a voluminous writer, belonging 
to what may be called the quarrelsome class. Most of his writings 
have passed into oblivion with the personal squabbles in which they 
originated. His only work of permanent value was his Life of Cicero, 
which was, until the appearance of Forsyth's Cicero, the standard 
work upon the subject. Middleton's Cicero is an able and well-written 
biography, although open to criticism. The style is easy and vigorous, 
but disfigured here and there by the use of slang phrases. The chief 
objection to the conception of the work is that, it extols Cicero unduly. 

De Foe. 

Daniel De Foe, 1661-1731, was the author of the world-renowned 
Eobinson Crusoe. 

De Foe was the son of a butcher, James Foe, the prefix being as- 
sumed by Daniel. He was educated among the dissenters, and was 
expected to become a minister, but he did not carry out the plans of 
his friends. He was for a time a soldier ; he wavS a political negotia- 
tor ; he engaged in several kinds of trade. But his chief occupation 
was that of authorship. The amount that he wrote was enormous. 
The coinplete edition of his works, by Walter Scott, was in 20 vols., 
12mo. A large part of his writings was on political subjects. He 
entered freely into the discussion of public afiairs, and not always 
on the winning side. BUs works number more than two hundred ; all 
of them were on subjects of popular interest, and were at the time 
much read. He is now known, however, almost exclusively as a nov- 
elist, and most of all by his one novel, the Adventures of Eobinson 
Crusoe. 

Wollaston. 

William Wollaston, 1659-1724, a clergyman of leisure, educated at 
Cambridge, published in 1722 a work called The Keligion of Nature, 
which was much read, and is often quoted in religious and philosoph- 
ical treatises of the eighteenth century. In it he mamtains that Truth 
is the supreme good, and the source of all morality, laying down, as a 
foundation of his argument, that every action is a good one which ex- 
presses in act a true proposition. 

9 G 



98 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Hutchinson. 

John Hutchinson, 1674-1737, was the founder of the Hutchinsonian 
school of interpretation. The pivotal idea of his system was that the 
Hebrew Scriptures contain the elements of science and philosophy as 
well as of religion, and that science is to be interpreted by the Bible. 

Huteheson. 

Francis Huteheson, 1649-1747, was a metaphysical writer of con- 
siderable celebrity. He was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the 
University of Dublin. His writings on metaphysical science, though 
not numerous, exerted a large influence by their originality and the 
clearness and beauty with which his thoughts were presented. He is 
even sometimes considered as the founder of the modern Scottish 
school of philosophy. The doctrine which he particularly advocated 
was the existence of an innate moral sense. 

Hartley. 

David Hartley, M. D., 1705-1757, was a writer of some note on 
metaphysical science. He is the author of several medical treatises, 
but is best known by his Theory of the Human Mind. This theory 
regards the brain, nerves, and spinal chord as the direct instruments 
of sensation, by means of vibrations communicated to and through them 
by external objects. 

Whiston. 

William Whiston, 1667-1752, notorious in his own day for his theo- 
logical heresies, and the persecution and controversy to which they 
gave rise, is now chiefly known for his translation of Josephus. 

Bailey. 

Nathan Bailey, 1742, was author of the English Dictionary 

which was in current use previous to that of Dr. Johnson. Bailey's 
Dictionary was published in folio and in various other forms, and was 
for a long time almost the only acknowledged standard of the language. 
Mr. Bailey was a good philologist for that day, and his work was a 
worthy contribution to the cause of letters. 

Ephraim Chambers. 

Ephraim Chambers, 1740, was the author of Chambers's Cyclo- 
paedia. Chambers began as an apprentice with Mr. Senex, a globe- 



I 



POPE AND HIS COXTEMPORAEIES. 99 

maker in London. Acquiring, while in this business, a strong taste 
for scientific pursuits, he withdrew from the work of globemaking, and 
gave himself up entirely to the preparation of his Cyclopaedia. It was 
published by subscription, in 2 vols., foL, and had a large sale, bringing 
the author both money and fame. The work was enlarged from time 
to time, and finally led to, or was merged in, Eees's Cyclopaedia, 45 
vols., 4to. 

IV. THEOLOGICAL -WRITERS. 

Butler. 

Joseph Butler, D. D., 1G92-1752, a learned Bishop of the English 
Church, wrote several important works, but the others are thrown into 
the shade by that one with which the world is familiar, The Analogy 
of Eeligion, Natural and Eevealed, to the Constitution and Course of 
Nature. 

Butler's Analogy has been accepted almost universally as a standard 
work on the subject of which it treats, and it is used as a text-book in 
a large proportion of the higher institutions of learning. The distinc- 
tion which it has gained is due, however, more to the soundness of the 
argument than to the lucid or attractive style in which the argument 
is presented. It has been alleged, indeed, that the difficulty referred 
to is owing entirely to the abstruse character of the subjects discussed. 
But this is a mistake. His style is not to be commended or imitated. 
He is dry, obscure, and dull, where Locke, Berkeley, or Brown would 
have been vivacious and lucid. 

Leslie. « 

Charles Leslie, 1650-1722, a native of Ireland, and a graduate of 
Trinity College, Dublin, was ordained in the English Church, but being 
a strong Jacobite, and refusing to take the oath of allegiance to Wil- 
liam and Mary, he applied himself to the use of his pen only. His 
Short and Easy Method with the Deists has acquired great celebrity, 
and is always quoted in lists of works on the evidences of Christianity. 

Stackhouse. 

Thomas Stackhouse, 1680-1752, a theologian of the English Church, 
is well known for his Complete Body of Divinity, published originally 
in folio, and for his History of the Bible, published originally in 2 
vols., folio. 



100 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

Doddridge. 

Philip Doddridge, 1702-1751, was a Dissenting minister of great 
repute among all branches of the Protestant Church. His collected 
works fill 19 vols., 8vo. The works best known are: The Family 
Expositor, which occupies 6 vols, in the collected edition here men- 
tioned, and The Kise and Progress of Eeligion in the Soul. The 
Family Expositor has been extremely popular, and it is still used to 
some extent. The author seems to have had an instinctive sagacity 
in knowing just what was needed in such a work, to fit it for family 
use. The Else and Progress has long since become a classic in the 
list of books on religious experience. Doddridge wrote also some 
very excellent Hymns, which have found their way into the hymnals 
of most Protestant churches. 

Leland. 

John Leland, D. D., 1691-1766, a Presbyterian minister, settled in 
Dublin, is distinguished as a writer of apologetics. Some of his works 
in defence of Christianity are considered as among the best that have 
ever been written. The one of greatest note is A View of the Deisti- 
cal Writers, 3 vols., 8vo. 

Ridgley. 

Thomas Eidgley, D. D., 1667-1734, an Independent Calvinistic di- 
vine, is chiefly known by his work, A Body of Divinity, being the 
substance of a course of lectures on The Assembly's Larger Cate- 
chism. This work, published originally in 1733, is still in current 
use, and is a standard work on theology among Presbyterians, and 
indeed among all Calvinists. 

Neal. 

Daniel Neal, 1678-1743, a Dissenting minister, is known almost 
exclusively by his History of the Puritans, 4 vols., 8vo. This is the 
story of the Non-conformists, as seen and told by themselves ; and it 
is usually applauded or condemned, according as the judge is a dis- 
senter or a member of the Church of England. There is no question, 
however, of its being a work of ability and research. 

Boston. 

Eev. Thomas Boston, 1676-1732, was a Scotch preacher of great 
note, whose Fourfold State used to be one of the household treasures 
in almost every religious family. 




CHAPTER X. 

Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 

(1740-1780.) 

After the death of Pope, 1744, the person who for the next forty 
years figured most largely in literature was Dr. Samuel Johnson. The 
time of Johnson's supremacy covers, in round numbers, the first twen- 
ty-five years of the reign of George III., 1760-1785. It includes 
among its political events the celebrated trial of Warren Hastings, 
and the still more important issue, the American Revolutionary War. 

The writers who belong to this period are divided into four sections: 
1. Miscellaneous Prose Writers, beginning with Dr. Johnson; 2. Nov- 
elists, beginning with E-ichardson; 3. Poets, beginning with Gold- 
smith ; 4, Theological Writers, beginning with Warburton. 

t 

I. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE -WRITERS. 

Dr. Jolinson. 

Samuel Johnson, LL. D., 1709-1784, was for nearly an entire gen- 
eration the acknowledged autocrat of English letters. He was the 
centre of attraction for such men as Goldsmith, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, 
Garrick, Eeynolds, and Gibbon ; his presence and conversation were 
everywhere courted as though he had been the great Mogul of literary 
opinion. 

Dr. Johnson was born at Lichfield, the son of a bookseller. He 
was afflicted from boyhood with scrofula, which weakened his eye- 
sight and otherwise indisposed him to bodily exertion. Notwith- 
standing these obstacles, he was, on his admission to the University, 
9* 101 



102 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

uncommonly well versed in the preparatory studies. After remaining 
three years at Oxford, he left for want of means to continue his resi- 
dence, and did not take his degree. At the age of twenty-seven he 
was married to a widow nearly twice his age, with vulgar manners, a 
loud voice, and a florid complexion. They seem, however, to have 
lived happily together, and on her death, sixteen years afterwards, he 
mourned her loss to a degree that for some years unfitted him for lit- 
erary labor. She brought him a fortune of £800, and with this he 
attempted to set up an Academy. He obtained, however, only three 
pupils, one of them the celebrated Garrick. The Academy failing, 
Johnson determined to go to London and enter upon a life of author- 
ship. Garrick went with him to seek fame and fortune as an actor. 

The first few years of Johnson's life in London were miserable 
enough. He often suffered from actual hunger, and at times he and 
the poet Savage walked the streets together at night, because too poor 
to pay for lodgings. Tlie first work of his which brought him into 
note was London, a Satire, in imitation of Juvenal. There were in 
this short piece a vigor of thought and a polish of expression, that 
marked the author as a man of no common order. Pope, then in his 
meridian, recognized at once the unknown author as a dangerous com- 
petitor, yet had the generosity to help to bring him into notice and 
favor, Johnson's fortunes after this gradually improved. He found 
employment for his pen in a variety of literary enterprises, so that he 
was no longer in actual want, and in 1762, at the age of fifty-three, he 
received from King George III. the grant of an annual pension of 
£300. His last days were spent in comparative ease and comfort. 
He became the centre of a circle of men rarely equalled for brilliancy 
-and genius; he was honored with titles from the Universities; his 
voice was everywhere listened to as that of the greatest literary mag- 
nate of the realm. 

His principal works are the following : London, a Satire, already 
mentioned ; The Vanity of Human Wishes, his only other poem of 
note ; Irene, a Tragedy, generally admitted to be a failure ; Easselas, 
or The Happy Valley, a story with little incident, but embellished 
with a sonorous and flowing eloquence; The Eambler, of which he 
wrote 204 out of the 208 numbers; The Idler, another series of 
essays of a like character ; The Lives of the Poets, filling many vol- 
umes ; A Journey to the Hebrides ; An Edition of Shakespeare, with 
Preface and Notes ; and lastly, a Dictionary of the English Language. 

Johnson's merits as a lexicographer are of a mingled character. 
He was not a linguist ; he knew nothing of the science of language, 
and next to nothing of the requirements of lexicography, as now 



JOIIXSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 103 

understood. Yet, in tlie preparation of liis English Dictionary, he 
aciiieved a great and lasting work, the most important single contri- 
bution to English letters of the age in which he lived. The collection 
of examples which he made from his own reading and research, in 
illustration of the meaning of the words, and the surpassing clearness 
with which in most cases he expressed the meaning in his definitions, 
have won the admiration of all competent judges, and have made his 
work the basis of all subsequent efforts in the same line. 

As an Essayist, Johnson lacks the grace and simiDlicity and exqui- 
site humor which were the peculiar charm of Addison ; yet he was a 
fearless advocate of morals and religion, when it was the fashion 
among men of wit to decry them both ; and he undoubtedly, by his 
courage in this matter, and by the masculine force of his understand- 
ing, gave a tone to the public mind on this subject, the effects of which 
have been felt ever since. 

His critical judgments are to be received with caution. He was a 
man of violent prejudices, an ultra Tory in politics, and, as such, 
opposed to republicanism in every shape. He was not only bitter 
against the Americans, but he did scant justice to Milton, as the poet 
of the Commonwealth. His judgments, indeed, in matters of poetry, 
are the least valuable of his opinions. He could appreciate didactic 
or satiric poetry, like his own, or like that of Dryden, but he would 
have been as incompetent to feel the finer beauties of Tennyson, as he 
was to feel those of Shakespeare, His edition of Shakespeare, indeed, 
except portions of the Preface, was an utter failure. His Lives of the 
Poets, however, contains some of the best things he has written, and 
the work, with all its acknowledged shortcomings, is a valuable part 
of the permanent literature of the language. 

In enumerating the works of Johnson, Boswell's Biography of him 
should always be included. That biography consists mainly of the 
sayings of Johnson, as recorded by Boswell from day to day, and these 
sayings are probably a better exponent of Johnson's mind than any of 
his own writings. When he put pen to paper, his mind was at once 
on stilts, and he gave utterance to his thoughts according to the false 
ideas of style which he had formed. But in his table-talk, he was 
idiomatic and simple, and his thoughts came with a directness that 
added to their native force. / 

Burke. 

Edmund Burke, 1728-1797, was a man of commanding abilities, 
and one of the leading writers and statesmen of his age. He was a 
native of Dublin, and a graduate of Trinity College of that city. 



104 ENGS^LISH LITERATURE. 

Burke's first publication of any note was The Vindication of Nat- 
ural Society, by a Late Noble Y/riter. It was written in imitation of 
Bolingbroke, and published anonymously. " It was the most perfect 
specimen the world has ever seen of the art of imitating the style and 
manner of another. He went beyond the mere choice of words, the 
structure of sentences, and the cast of imagery, into the deepest re- 
cesses of thought ; and so completely had he imbued himself with the 
spirit of Bolingbroke, that he brought out precisely what -every one 
sees his lordship ought to have said on his own xDrinciples, and might 
be expected to say, if he had dared to express his sentiments." The 
effect was the more remarkable, because in the opinion of all the emi- 
nent critics of that day, both friends and foes, Bolingbroke's style was 
" not only the best of that day, but in itself wholly inimitable." Yet 
the critics were completely taken in. The essay was accepted almost 
universally as a posthumous work of Bolingbroke' s. Johnson, Ches- 
terfield, and even Warburton pronounced it genuine. 

In the course of the same year (1756, set. 28)^ Burke published his 
celebrated work, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas 
of the Sublime and Beautiful, which has become an acknowledged 
English classic, as much so as any writing of Aristotle is classical in 
Greek. The publication of this work brought the author at once into 
public notice, and led to the acquaintance and friendship of Johnson, 
Reynolds, and other celebrities. 

In 1766, Burke entered Parliament, and for the next twenty years 
his pen and his tongue were occupied mainly with affairs of state. 
The most beautiful and eloquent of all his productions was called out 
by the excesses and the frenzy of the French republicans, after the 
overthrow of the monarchy. His own party was in sympathy with 
the revolutionists in France. But Burke became alarmed at the 
lengths to which they were going, and in 1790 he gave utterance to 
his feelings in the work just referred to, Eeflections on the Eevolution 
in France. On no one of his works did he bestow such care. The 
effect of the publication was prodigious, not only in England, but 
throughout Eui'ope ; and honors and emoluments were showered upon 
tlie author from every quarter. 

The greatest work of Burke's public life was his Impeachment of 
Warren Hastings. Unfortunately, his speech on this occasion was 
not written out by the author. The traditions of it that remain, how- 
ever, leave little doubt that it was one of the greatest efforts of parlia- 
mentary eloquence in ancient or modern times, 

Burke was offered a peerage. Having just lost his only surviving 
son, he declined the barren honor ; and in A Letter to a Noble Lord^ 



JOHXSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 105 

written soon after, he gives expression to his feeling of loneliness and 
bereavement in terms of singular beauty and pathos. Burke's Par- 
liamentary Speeches fill several volumes, and form an enduring mon- 
ument to his fame as a great philosophical statesman, while his essay 
on The Sublime and Beautiful, and his Reflections on the Revolution 
in France, challenge to themselves a foremost place among the great 
English classics. 

Chesterfield. 

Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, 1694-1773, "the 
philosopher of flattery and dissimulation," occupied a conspicuous 
position in society and in afiairs of state, and was ambitious of equal 
distinction in the world of letters. Chesterfield's Speeches in Parlia- 
ment were often of a high order of eloquence. His claim to a per- 
manent place in literature, however, rests almost entirely upon his 
Letters to his Son. These are graceful and elegant compositions, but 
are noted for the worldly, selfish, and even at times immoral character 
of the advice given. 



Junius — Sir Philip Francis. 

Sir Philip Francis, 1740-1818, was an accomplished political writer, 
contemporary with Burke, Fox, and Pitt. 

Sir Philip took an active part in the famous trial of Warren Hastings, 
and was conspicuous as a statesman and a member of Parliament. The 
conjecture that he was the author of the Letters of Junius, was early 
broached, and after much discussion was nearly abandoned, notwith- 
standing the advocacy of such men as Macaulay and Brougham, until 
the year 1871, when the authorship of the Letters was put almost 
beyond question by the examination of the handwriting of Junius 
and of Sir Philip Francis by a professional expert. 

The Letters of Junius appeared at intervals in the Public Adver- 
tiser, of London, during the years 1769-72. By the boldness of their 
invective and the masterly style in which they were written, they at- 
tracted universal attention, and they exerted a prodigious influence 
upon the public mind. That influence was intensified by the impene- 
trable secrecy in which the authorship was shrouded. The writer was 
evidently well acquainted with important state secrets ; he was one 
whose abilities were of the first order, and who could not well live in 
obscurity ; yet of all the men eminent in letters and position, then 
living, there was not one whom it seemed possible to associate with 
the authorship of these Letters. Conjectures pointed to one after 



106- ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

another, but some fatal mark was found that seemed to exclude each, 
in succession, until the hunt was almost given up in despair. The 
public mind had well-nigh settled down in the conclusion that the 
mystery was insoluble. At length, in 1871, a volume appeared, enti- 
tled The Handwriting of Junius Professionally Investigated, by Mr. 
Charles Chabot, an Expert, which seems to settle the question. Its 
object is to x^rove by a minute and exhaustive examination of the 
Junian manuscripts and of the letters of Sir Philip Francis, that both 
were written by the same hand. The proof is of the strongest kind, 
amounting almost to a demonstration, and will go far to put this vexed 
question at rest. 

As specimens of style, the Letters of Junius are, in their kind, 
absolutely perfect. 

Hume. 

David Hume, 1711-1776, is universally known as the author of the 
most popular History of England yet written, and as a writer of great 
power on subjects connected with political economy, morals, and reli- 
gion. In the works last n?^med he is a thorough-going infidel, attack- 
ing Christianity on metaphysical grounds chiefly. This class of his 
writings has been of most baleful tendency. 

Hume was a Scotchman, a native of Edinburgh. He abandoned 
business and the study of the law for literature ; was Secretary of the 
French Embassy, 1763-4 ; and Under-Secretary of State, 1767-8. His 
life was uneventful, and, with the exception of the few years when he 
served in Government offices, was passed in studious retirement, chiefly 
in London. 

Hume's merits as a historian are of a mingled character. His his- 
tory has been, and will continue to be, until superseded by a better, the 
most readable general work on the English past. In one respect, at least, 
its merits are unquestionable — the pureness and grace of his style. 
Gibbon declares that he always closed one of Hume's volumes "with 
a mixed sensation of delight and despair." As an investigator into 
the facts and truths of history, on the other hand, Hume is undoubtedly 
weak and untrustworthy — not merely because he wrote his work from 
the point of view of one political party (the Tory), or that he is guilty 
of many inaccuracies ; but because, as is evident from the time spent 
in its composition, and from outside evidence as to Home's mode of 
study and composition, the Avriter was superficial and careless. 

The influence of his Philosophical Opinions has been baneful in the 
extreme. Plis position, as before remarked, is that of a thorough-going 
infidel. His "Essay on Miracles," the most celebrated of all his 



JOHNSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 107 

philosopliical writings, is still, in one form or another, the battle- 
ground betvreen believer and unbeliever. By reason of the vigor and 
grace of its style, it has always been the most formidable engine of at- 
tack upon Christianity. Hume was not merely a metaphysical thinker, 
however. His politico-economical essays are masterpieces of clear 
thinking applied to practical subjects. They have been highly praised 
by subsequent leaders in the science, and may be considered as the 
forerunner, and in methodical arrangement the superior, of Adam 
Smith's celebrated dissertation. 

Gibbon. 

Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794, by his great work, the Decline and Fall 
of the Eoman Empire, created for himself a permanent ]3lace in liter- 
ature. The Decline and Fall is universally acknowledged to be one 
of the greatest masterpieces of historical composition, — having the 
artistic finish of the classic models and the exhaustive learning and 
research of modern history. It is subject, however, to one great blot. 
The author's prejudices against Christianity warped his judgment 
whenever that subject was introduced. 

Gibbon wrote some other works besides the Decline and Fall, but 
the only one of them of any note was his Autobiography, written to 
amuse his leisure hours, after his great work was off his hands and he 
had become famous. It is considered one of the happiest efforts in 
that line of composition. 

Robertson. 

William Eobertson, 1721-1793, is another of the great historians of 
this period, — Hume, Gibbon, and Eobertson constituting an illus- 
trious trio, whose names always go together, although both their works 
and they themselves are quite unlike. Eobertson's chief works vrere 
A History of Scotland, A History of America, and A History of 
Charles V. 

Kames. • 

Henry Home, Lord Kames, 1696-1782, has acquired deserved celeb- 
rity by his essay on the Elements of Criticism, which has a permanent 
value, and is one of the standard works on that subject. "The Ele- 
ments of Criticism, consicjered as the first systematical attempt to in- 
vestigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts, possesses, in 
spite of its numerous defects, both in point of taste and of pliilosophy, 
infinite merits, and will ever be regarded as a literary wonder by those 
who know how small a portion of his time it was possible for the 



108 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

author to allot to the composition of it, amidst the imperious and 
multifarious duties of a most active and useful life." — Dugald Stewart. 

James Harris, 1709-1780, is known as the author of Hermes, an 
ingenious work on Language and Grammar. 

Tyr^AThitt. 

Thomas Tyrwhitt, 1730-1786, a distinguished critic of the last cen- 
tury, has secured for himself a permanent place in English literature 
by his valuable labors in the elucidation of Chaucer. Tyrwhitt's edi- 
tion of the Canterbury Tales, 1775-78, was the first serious and cred- 
itable attempt to rescue any part of the text* of Chaucer from the 
shockingly corrupt state in which it had appeared in the earlier edi- 
tions. Nothing is more disgraceful to English scholarship than the 
long-continued neglect on this subject; the greatest poet in the lan- 
guage, before Shakespeare, remaining for four centuries almost unin- 
telligible for want of proper editing. Tyrwhitt, by his edition of the 
Canterbury Tales, did an immense service, by showing what a mine 
of wealth here lay hidden. The vein thus opened has been followed 
up by other explorers. But we still lack a really good text of Eng- 
land's first great poet. 

Lord Lyttelton. 

Lord George Lyttelton, 1708-1773, is the author of an ingenious 
essay, of permanent value, on the Conversion of St. Paul, proving 
from it the divine origin of Christianity. Lyttelton was educated at 
Eton and Oxford, and entered Parliament with prospects of a brilliant 
career. After a brief experience of political life, however, he re- 
signed his office, that of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and retired to 
private life, employing his leisure in literary pursuits. His Observa- 
tions on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul is still regarded 
as a masterpiece in its way. This beautiful monograph is an ingeni- 
ous and unanswerable argument for the divine origin of Christianity. 
Dialogues of the Dead was another work on which Lyttelton ex- 
pended much labor. It shows learning and study, and a familiar 
acquaintance with the historical characters introduced, but is now gen- 
erally considered dull and prolix. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. 

Elizabeth Carter, 1717-180G, known in her later days as Mrs. Carter, 
as was the custom in England with single ladies after reaching a ma- 



MISCELLANEOUS PROSE WKITERS 109 

tronly age, was celebrated for hex classical scholarship. She received 
from her father, who was a clergyman, a thorough training in the 
knowledge of Latin and Greek, and she made herself familiar with 
Italian, German, French, and Spanish. The work which gained her 
most eclat was a translation of Epictetus, which, in Warton's opinion, 
" exceeds the original." 

Lady Mary Montagu. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1690-1762, is connected about equally 
with the age of Pope and that of Dr. Johnson. She fills a consider- 
able space in the history of the times, by the distinguished part which 
she played in social and diplomatic circles, by her intelligent and 
philanthropic efibrts in the matter of inoculation for the small-pox, 
and by her Letters, which have become a valuable part of literary 
history. She was the daughter of the Duke of Kingston. Her hus- 
band being appointed ambassador to Turkey, Lady Mary accompanied 
him, and wrote to her friends at home a series of Letters, which were 
surreptitiously published in 1763, and permanently established the 
writer's fame. As specimens of epistolary style they are among the 
best in English literature. She was the means of introducing into 
England the Turkish practice of inoculation for small-pox, boldly 
subjecting her own children to the then dreaded operation. It was 
not until Jenner introduced the still better system of vaccination that 
her benefaction was superseded. 

Elizabetli Montagu. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, 1720-1800, belongs almost equally to the 
age of Dr. Johnson and to that of Cowper. She was by marriage 
cousin of the celebrated Lady Mary Montagu. Mrs. Montagu's hus- 
band died, leaving her in the enjoyment of a large fortune. Her 
house became the centre of literature and fashion. Her soirees were 
thronged with all the literary notabilities of the day. Mrs. Montagu 
herself was noted for her conversational powers, but she produced 
little in the way of authorship. The Letters of Mrs. Montagu, in two 
parts, were published after her death. They are lively, "gossipy" 
efiusions, and form a part of the literary history of the times. 
10 



110 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



II. THE NOVELISTS. 

Rieliardson. 

Samuel Eicliardson, 1689-1767, came before tlie public a little earlier 
than his great rival, Fielding, and is sometimes called the father of the 
English Novel. But this epithet belongs more properly to the latter 
writer. Eichardson's three novels, however, Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, 
and Sir Charles Grandison, are among the memorable works of the 
age, and ensure to their author a permanent place in English literature. 

Richardson was a printer by trade, and he succeeded in gaining for 
himself a competency long before lie ever thought of turning his atten- 
tion to Avriting. As a boy he evinced a fondness for reading, and skill 
in the use of the pen, so that the young women of the village frequently 
employed him to write their love-letters. In this way Richardson laid 
the foundations for that knowledge of woman's heart and woman's ways, 
which afterwards stood him in such good stead. Indeed, he seems to 
have been, throughout life, a chatty, not to say gossipy, soul, and never 
so much at home as when the centre of a small circle of kind-hearted 
if not particularly strong-headed female admirers. 

In judging Richardson's merits we must take into account the age in 
which he lived and the circumstances under which he wrote. Before 
him there had been no novel ; nothmg but romances in imitation of the 
French, where the loves of princes and princesses were narrated in very 
vaporous and stilted language. Richardson brought the scene from the 
moonshine down to the earth, and was the first to give a real episode 
from EngKsh life, with real English men and women for actors. 

Fielding. 

Henry Fielding, 1707-1754, may be considered as the true father of 
the English Novel. There were other writers of fiction before him, as 
there were other poets before Chaucer. But Fielding first showed by 
example the great resources and power of this species of literature, 
not only as a delineator of manners, but as a moral influence in society. 

Fielding did a good many other things, and wrote many other works, 
among them no less than twenty-five Comedies ; but his three great 
Novels, Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia, so for overtop all 
else that he did or wrote, that it scarcely deserves to be mentioned in 
the comparison. As an artist, in the delineation of human nature, it 
is conceded on all hands that Fielding has never been surpassed by 
any writer of English fiction. Yet there is a coarseness in his scenes. 



JOHXSOX AND HIS CONTEMPOR AEIES. Ill 

and often in liis language, tliat makes a sad drawback to the pleasure 
of reading hini. 

Smollett. 

Tobias George Smollett, 1721-1771, is permanently associated in" 
fame with Richardson and Fielding. His three novels, Roderick Ran- 
dom, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker, if not equal to the 
three great novels of Fielding, are superior to the three of Richardson, 
and occupy a prominent place in the literature of the age. 

Sterne. 

Laurence Sterne, 1713-1768, is celebrated as a humorist and senti- 
mentalist. His two chief works, Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental 
Journev, are among the best known of all the works of this period. 



III. THE POETS. 

Goldsmith. 

Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-1774, is one of the most conspicuous orna- 
ments of the period now under consideration. He excelled about 
equally in poetry and prose. Of the vast mass of his prose writings, 
however, the greater j)art has ceased to be of interest. The only one, 
in fact, that is now generally read is the Vicar of Wakefield. But 
his poems, though inconsiderable in amount, have a perpetual charm. 
There are, indeed, few poems in the language that have a better pros- 
pect of a permanent place in its literature than the Deserted Village. 
' Goldsmith was a native of Ireland, the son of a clergymfin of the 
Established Church. In boyhood he had the small-pox, by which his 
face "was permanently disfigured. At the age of seventeen, tlirough the 
liberality of a kind-hearted uncle. Goldsmith entered Trinity College, 
Dublin. Here he gained few distinctions, his habits of study, like all 
his other habits, being wrecked by improvidence. Mortified by an 
indignity put upon him by his tutor. Goldsmith left College, but 
lingered in Dublin until reduced to the extremity of destitution. His 
last shilling and most of his clothing gone, hungry and half naked, he 
set out for Cork, and on the way was saved from actual starvation by 
a handful of gray peas given him at a wake by a kind-hearted peasant 
girl. By the kind interposition of his brother, Oliver was reinstated 
in College, and remained there two years longer, at the end of which 
time he managed to take his degree. By the persuasion of his uncle, 
Goldsmith began studying for the church, and at the end of two years 



112 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

presented himself to the Bishop for examination, ''but appearing in a 
pair of scarlet breeches, he was rejected." The persevering benefactor, 
his uncle, then procured him a position as private tutor, but Oliver 
quarrelled with one of the family over a game of cards, and lost his 
position. He had, however, at the time of his dismissal, thirty pounds 
in cash, which seemed to him a mint of money. But in the course of 
six weeks he squandered it all, and returned to his mother without a 
shilling in his pocket. Once more the patient uncle conceived that 
the young spendthrift might perhaps succeed at the law, and supplied 
him accordingly with fifty pounds, wherewith to make a beginning. 
The fifty pounds were spent at the gaming-table, and Goldsmith was 
again at the verge of ruin. The next experiment of Oliver's friends 
was to set him up as a Doctor of Medicine. They put together what 
few guineas they could spare, and sent him to Edinburgh. Here he 
did not entirely throw away his time, but attended some lectures 
during the eighteen months of his residence. He could, however, tell 
a good story and sing a capital Irish song, and he shone accordingly 
in social circles more than in the halls of science. 

A roving disposition impelled him to travel, and he is next found 
on the continent, sometimes at seats of learning, picking up scraps of 
knowledge at the lectures of great scholars, but more frequently trav- 
elling through the country on foot, and getting his meals and lodgings 
by making himself agreeable to the peasants with his musical abilities 
and his other skill in tlie arts of entertainment. Eeturning to England 
at the a§|«Df twenty-eight. Goldsmith made his way to London, only 
to meet starvation in the face. For the next two or three years his 
struggles for the means of bare subsistence were extreme. He did all 
kinds of book work for the publishers, — whatever would bring a few 
pounds or even shillings. By degrees, however, his merits became 
known, and he had ample occupation, at remunerating prices. But 
his habits of easy improvidence kept him always in want, or in arrears. 
He was among the acknowledged celebrities of the day, mingling 
freely and on equal terms with the authors and artists who revolved 
about Dr. Johnson. 

The following are Goldsmith's principal works: The Deserted 
Village, the most beautiful of all his poems ; The Traveller, a poem 
giving descriptions drawn from his wanderings on the Continent ; the 
exquisite ballad of The Hermit, or the story of Edwin and Angelina ; 
The Haunch of Venison, a playful piece of pleasantry, acknowledging, 
in graceful verse, a gift of venison ; Ectaliation, a good-natured satire, 
in wliich he paid oS a few of the endless jokes against himself by 
drawing in turn a caricature of some of his friends ; two successfiil 



JOHXSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 113 

Comedies, The Good-Natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer ; Pop- 
ular Histories of Greece, Eome, and England ; and lastly, A History 
of Animated Nature, in 8 vols., 8vo. 

As an historian and a writer on natural history, he made no pre- 
tence to original research. He was a mere compiler. But he had 
a wonderful skill in the art of composition ; and taking the materials 
collected by others, he worked them into forms of grace and beauty. 
His histories became text-books, his Animated Nature had the attrac- 
tion of a work of fiction. 

Gray. 

Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, gained for himself the very highest re- 
nown as a lyrical poet by his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. 
Gray was distinguished for the accuracy of his classical scholarship, 
and for his varied learning, and he formed many magnificent projects 
of works that never saw the light. His chief excellence is as a lyric 
writer, and in this line he stands among the first. The Elegy Written 
in a Country Churchyard is one of the poems of all time, and is just 
as sure of immortality as anything written by Horace or by Pindar. 
One familiar and remarkable tribute to the merit of this poem is the 
great number of translations of it which have been made into the 
various languages of Europe, ancient and modern. It has been trans- 
lated into Hebrew, the words and phrases being taken, as far as possible, 
from the classical idioms of the Old Testament ; into Ch^eek, 7 different 
versions ; into Latin, 12 versions ; into Italian, 12 versions ; into French, 
15 versions ; into German, 6 versions ; into Portuguese. 

His Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College is only second to the 
Elegy in popularity. His other lyrical pieces are the following : Ode 
on Spring; Hymn to Adversity; Ode to Vicissitude; The Progress 
of Poesy, a Pindaric Ode ; The Bard, a Pindaric Ode. The Pindaric 
Odes have less of the elements of popularity than any of his poems. 

Collins. 

William Collins, 1720-1756, is one of the greatest of English lyric 
poets. What he has written is not much in amount, but that little is 
of the highest order of excellence. Some of his odes are thought to 
come as near absolute perfection as anything ever written. The Ode 
on the Passions will doubtless live as long as the language itself in 
which the poem is written. 

10* H 



114 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE, 

Shenstone. 

"William Shenstone, 1714-1763, is favorably known by Lis poem, 
The Schoolmistress, written in the Spenserian measure. 

Akenside. 

Mark Akenside, M. J)., 1721-1770, had considerable eminence in his 
day as a medical practitioner and a writer on medical science. But 
his chief distinction was won by a poem on The Pleasures of the Im- 
agination, first published in 1744. 

Allan Ramsay. 

Allan Ramsay, 1685-1758, was a Scotch poet of some note. His 
poem, The Gentle Shepherd, has4)een a general favorite. 

Young. 

Edward Young, 1684-1765, author of "The Night Thoughts," holds 
no inconsiderable place in English literature. "Young's Night 
Thoughts" was once almost as common a book as Pilgrim's Progress, 
and as generally read. It is still one of the most popular works in 
the language, although open to obvious and just criticism. " It cer- 
tainly contains many splendid and happy conceptions, but their beauty 
is thickly marred by ftdse wit and over-labored antithesis ; indeed, his 
whole ideas seem to have been in a state of antithesis while he com- 
posed the poem. One portion of his fancy appears devoted to aggra- 
vate the picture of his desolate feelings, and the other half to contra- 
dict that picture by eccentric images and epigrammatic ingenuities." 

,. Mrs. Steele. 

Anne Steele, 1716-1778, is one of the sweet singers of the church. 
She was the daughter of a Baptist clergyman, the Eev. William Steele, 
of Broughton, Hampshire. She was never married, but in her later 
years became Mrs. Steele, by one of the beautiful courtesies of the 
olden time. She was the author of Poems on Subjects chiefly devo- 
tional, in 3 vols. The collection includes 144 Hymns, 34 Psalms, and 
about 50 poems on moral subjects. Some of her Hymns are faultless 
as lyrics, and are familiar in almost every household of the Christian 
faith. 

Falconer. 

William Falconer, 1730-1769, has a permanent place in English 
literature by his one remarkable poem. The Shipwreck. 



JOHNSOX AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 115 

Chatterton. 

Thomas Chatterton, 1752-1770, was a youthful poet, whose extraor- 
dinary talents and impostures are among the standing wonders of 
literary history. Chatterton was born in Bristol, and was the son of a 
sexton. The family for some generations had been in charge of the 
RadclifF church, and it was in the muniment-room of this church that 
the young poet found the means for his impostures. He had a morbid 
fancy for anything curious or antique, and the illuminated capitals in 
some of the old manuscripts to which he had access excited him. At 
the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a scrivener, and not having 
much else to do, he eagerly devoured everything on the subject of 
heraldry and antiquities that came in his way. 

On the opening of the New Bridge, the Bristol papers contained A 
Description of the Fryer's First Passage over the Old Bridge, purport- 
ing to be taken from an ancient manuscript. The paper, which was 
a really curious affair, being traced to the boy Chatterton, he declared 
that it had been found by his father, with many other old MSS., in an 
iron chest in the muniment-room of the church. From this time, he 
continued to furnish to the public and to individuals specimens of 
these old MSS. 

The poetical compositions which he furnished purported to be 
chiefly by W. Canynge, a Bristol merchant, and Thomas Eowley, a 
monk or secular priest, both of the fifteenth century. The peculiarities 
of the ancient manuscripts, the spelling, grammar, and modes of 
thought were so thoroughly imitated, that the documents seemed cer- 
tainly genuine ; yet the poetry was of so superior a character to any- 
thing likely to be found in such circumstances, that the critics were 
sorely puzzled. A violent controversy arose on the question of the 
authenticity of these remarkable productions. Why should a lad, 
who could produce from his own brain poetry of so high an order, tax 
his ingenuity to palm off the credit of it upon others ? Nearly all the 
leading writers and critics of the day, Horace Walpole, Dr. Johnson, 
Gibbon, Bishop Percy, and a host of others, engaged in the discussion. 
Young Chatterton went to London, and readily made engagements 
with the booksellers, and was on the full tide of literary success when 
suddenly he was found dead in his bed, from the effects of a dose of 
arsenic. There was a streak of insanity in the family, and the disease 
which, in the judgment of charity, led him to this sad end, was prob- 
ably only another form of that which had prompted his strange im- 
postures. He died at the age of seventeen years nine months. 



116 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



IV. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. 

Bishop Warburton. 

William Warburton, 1698-1779, is one of the most conspicuous fig- 
ures of the times in which he lived, especially as a writer on polemic 
theology. His chief work, the Divine Legation of Moses, displayed 
prodigious learning and abilities. He is noted for his belligerent pro- 
pensities, and for the great variety, as well as the extent, of his attain- 
ments. 

The Divine Legation of Moses was an argument against the deistical 
philosophy of the day. Into this work, and the Vindication which he 
wrote in reply to attacks upon it, Warburton poured all the treasures 
of his learning. It was regarded at the time as one of the very master- 
pieces of English theology. The style is rough and often confused, 
but abounds in brilliant passages, and is a strong testimonial to the 
author's erudition. One of the most striking features of the work is 
Warburton's anticipation of modern discoveries in Egyptology. 

According to Lord Jeffrey, Warburton was the last of tlie race of 
powerful English polemics, a giant in literature, but with many of the 
vices of the gigantic character. 

Bishop Lowth. 

Eobert Lowth, D.D., 1710-1787, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, was 
a man of eminent standing in the Church of England. His chief work 
was Preelections on Hebrew Poetry. He wrote also an English 
Grammar, which was the foundation of Murray's. 

Hervey. 

James Hervey, 1713-1758, a divine of the English Church, edu- 
cated at Oxford, was a man of a very devotional spirit. His works 
have been published in 6 vols., 8vo. The most popular by far was 
the Meditations, "Hervey's Meditations, Pilgrim's Progress, the 
Whole Duty of Man, and the Bible, are commonly seen together on a 
shelf in the cottages of England." The sentiments are devout, and 
there is a good deal of poetical imagery, but the style is inflated and 
pompous. 

Law. 

William Law, 1687-1761, a graduate and Fellow of Cambridge, 
gave up his Fellowship in 1761 and became a Non-conformist. 



JOHXSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 117 

Law's works have been printed in 9 vols., 8vo. Most of them are 
controversial, and are of no special interest except as a part of the his- 
tory of the times. Others, as the Serious Call to a Holy Life, and 
the Treatise on Christian Perfection, are still among our most popular 
works on practical religion. 

Thomas Ne^Arton. 

Thomas Newton, D. D., 1704-1782, a graduate of Cambridge, and a 
Bishop of the English Church, is well known to theological literature 
by his large work on the Prophecies. This was for a long time con- 
sidered a standard work on this subject, but has of late lost much of 
its authority as a true interpretation of the x3roi3hetical writings. 

Cruden. 

Alexander Cruden, 1701-1770, is known to literature by his one 
work, the Concordance to the Holy Scriptures. 

Lardner. 

Kathaniel Lardner, D. D., 1684-1768, wrote a work of immense 
learning on the Credibility of the Gospel History, published originally 
in 17 volumes. His work gives evidence of immense reading and in- 
dustry, as well as sound judgment, and is regarded as exhaustive of 
the biblical learning of the times. 

Bisliop Challoner. 

Eichard Challoner, D. D., 1691-1781, a learned Bishop of the 
Catholic Church in England, wrote many works, partly controversial, 
and partly dogmatic and devotional, and is highly esteemed as a w:riter. 
Challoner published an English Bible, being in some sense a new 
version, and differing considerably in its diction from that of the 
Eheims-Douay. Dr. Challoner's version has been followed more than 
any other by English-speaking Catholics since his day, and his influ- 
ence upon the language of religion and devotion among Catholics has 
been accordingly very great. His influence in this respect has been 
still further increased by the great and continued popularity of his 
books on practical religion, such as " The Catholic Christian Instruct- 
ed," " Meditations," and other devotional works, some of which have 
been circulated by millions. So familiar, indeed, is the language of 
Challoner to Catholic Christians generally, that whenever, in any dio- 
cese, the question arises as to which English version of the Vulgate 



118 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

stall be autliorized for use in that diocese, the preference is given to 
Challoner's, rather than to the Kheims-Douay, notwithstanding the tra- 
ditional veneration in which- the latter is held. This was the decision 
of the late Cardinal Wiseman, and has been that of most English- 
speaking Bishops of the Catholic Church for the last hundred years. 

Alban Butler. 

Aiban Butler, 1700-1773, an English Catholic, educated at Douay, 
and for a long time President at St. Omer's, spent a large part of thirty 
years in his compilation of the Lives of the Saints. This was a large 
work, in 12 vols., 8vo. It was translated into French, Spanish, and 
Italian, and it has passed through several editions. It is a storehouse 
of curious learning, both ecclesiastical and secular, and it is written in 
a style of great purity and beauty. The author appears to have been 
a man of refinement and culture, singularly inoffensive in manners and 
spirit, carrying out in his life that amenity of temper everywhere ob- 
servable in his writings. 





CHAPTER XL 

COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES- 
(1780-1800.) 

DuniNG the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, there was 
no English writer equal in originality and power to the poet Cowper. 
He is taken, therefore, as the representative man of the period. The 
great political event of the time was the outbreak of the French Eev- 
olution. 

Note. — At no point in the history of English literature is it so dif- 
ficult to mark a well-defined period as here. Many writers, whom it 
is necessary to include in the present chapter, had intimate relations 
with the writers and the events of the previous period. Many of the 
writers, on the other hand, survived far into the present century, and 
had relations with Scott, Byron, Coleridge, and their associates. Yet 
a careful consideration of their several cases will, it is believed, show 
that the main connection of these writers, after all, was with the 
writers and events of the last twenty years of the eighteenth century. 
It is still more evident that the popular literature of the period, par- 
ticularly in its poetical and theological aspects, assumed new and 
marked features, after Cowper and the Wesleys, and the religious 
movement which they represented, had received full and distinct re- 
cognition. 

The writers of this period are divided into four sections : 1. The 
Poets, beginning with Cowper; 2. The Dramatists, beginning with 
Sheridan ; 3. Miscellaneous Prose Writers, beginning with Hannah 
More ; 4. Theological Writers, beginning with the Wesleys. 

' 119 



120 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 



I. THE POETS. 

Co^vper. 

William Cowper, 1731-1800, created a new era in English poetry 
— springing at a bound into a place in the popular heart far more 
firmly established, far more deeply set, than Pope had ever attained. 
Pope had been the poet of the wits ; Cowper became the poet of the 
race. The poems of his which first touched the popular heart were 
the Task, and the ballad of John Gilpin. The impression thus pro- 
duced was deepened by his Hymns, contributed to the Olney collection, 
and by his extended work, the Translation of Homer. 

Cowper, though in moderate circumstances at the time of his birth, 
was connected, both on his father's and his mother's side, with some 
of the noblest families in England, He was of a gentle, sensitive na- 
ture, and through life he instinctively shrank from whatever required 
any sort of rude encounter with his fellows. At the age of six, his 
mother being dead, he was sent for two years to a boarding-schoolj 
where he sufiered intolerable hardships from the tyranny of one of the 
older boys. He then went to Westminster School, where he served an 
apprenticeship of seven years to the classics. 

At the age of eigliteen, he was articled as a clerk in a law office. In 
due time he was called to the bar, and he took chambers, but he gained 
no clients. His father was now dead, he Avas in his thirty-second year, 
and his patrimony was nearly gone. At this crisis, one of his power- 
ful kinsmen procured for him the lucrative appointment of Clerk of 
the Journals to the House of Lords. The dread of qualifying himself 
by going through the necessary formalities in presence of the Lords, 
plunged him into the deepest distress. The seeds of insanity were al- 
ready in his frame, and after brooding a while over his condition, he 
became entirely insane, and attempted suicide. In the course of two 
years, under treatment at a private asylum, the cloud passed away, 
and he retired to a small country town where his brother resided. 

While living with his brother he formed an intimacy with the cler- 
gyman of the place, Rev. Mr. Unwin, and finally became an inmate 
of the family. After the death of Mr. Unwin, his widow, Mary Un- 
win, continued to watch over Cowper with a friendship that never 
faltered. The family removed, however, to Olney, the residence of 
the Rev. Mr. Newton ; and from that time John Newton and Mary 
Unwin are the main figures in the canvas which contains the picture 
of Cowper's life. Here he contributed some Hymns to the volume 
which Mr. Newton was preparing. His morbid melancholy again 



THE POETS. 121 

returned, and he became once more entirely insane. On recovering 
from this second attack, Cowper amused himself with gardening, 
drawing, rearing hares, and writing poetry. A volume of his poems 
was published, but it attracted little attention and had small sales. 

At this time Lady Austen became one of the frequent guests of the 
household, and it was at her suggestion that Cowper wrote the inimi- 
table poem of John Gilpin, she having given him the outline of the 
story. The effect of this poem was electrical, not only upon the pub- 
lic, but upon the author. At Lady Austen's suggestion, Cowper next 
tried his hand at blank verse, the result being the Task, the subject 
as before being assigned by this most wise and judicious adviser. The 
Task was immediately and universally popular. It opened an alto- 
gether new field in English letters. This was followed by no less an 
undertaking than a new translation of Homer, which he completed in 
1791, after seven years of continued labor. 

After this a deepening gloom began to settle on his mind, with occa- 
sional bright intervals. His life-long friend, Mary Unwin, died in 
1796. " The unhappy poet would not believe that she was actually 
dead; he went to see the body, and on witnessing the unaltered pla- 
cidity of death, flung himself to the other side of the room with a pas- 
sionate expression of feeling, and from that time he never mentioned 
her name, or spoke of her again." Cowper lingered on for three years 
or more, when death came at last to his release. 

John Ne-wton. 

Eev. John Newton, 1725-1807, is indissolubly associated with the 
history and the writings of Cowper. Newton was a native of London. 
Lie went to sea at the age of eleven ; was engaged for some years in 
the slave-trade, experienced a religious conversion of an extraordinary 
character, and became afterwards a very zealous preacher. He was 
for seventeen years curate of the church at Olney, and he is chiefly 
known by his connection with that church. The Olney Hymns, 
selected and partly composed by Nev/ton, Cowper, and James Mont- 
gomery, are well known, and form a marked feature in the history of 
English hymnody. Newton's writings are of the extreme evangelical 
type, and are noted for the rich vein of experimental religion that 
runs through them. 

Erasmus Da^^7vin. 

Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802, attracted considerable attention both 
as a poet and a naturalist. Darwin was a physician by profession, 
11 



122 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

and was educated at Cambridge. He wrote in a pleasing style, and 
the novelty and daring of some of his speculations caused his works 
to be a good deal read. The errors in his theories, however, were 
exposed by Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, and other metaphysi- 
cians, and his writings gradually subsided into comparative oblivion. 
His best known work is The Botanic Garden, a Poem, in two parts, 
Economy of Vegetation, and the Loves of Plants. 

Beattie. 

James Beattie, D. C. L., 1736-1803, Professor of Moral Philosophy 
and Logic in Marischal College, Aberdeen, was a friend and contempo- 
rary of Johnson, Goldsmith, Eeynolds, Garrick, and others of that 
class. He is well known as a poet and as a writer on moral and met- 
aphysical subjects. Beattie' s most popular work is the Minstrel, a 
poem in the Spenserian stanza. Of his prose works, the chief are: 
Essay on Truth, intended as a reply to Hume ; Evidences of the Chris- 
tian Eeligion ; Elements of Moral Science. The Essay on Truth met 
with great and immediate favor. It brought him the offer of the chair 
of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, which, however, 
he declined. It gained him also the acquaintance and intimacy of the 
most distinguished writers of the day, and a substantial token of royal 
favor in the shape of a pension of £200 per annum. 

Burns. 

Eobert Burns, 1759-1796, was "by far the greatest poet that ever 
sprung from the bosom of the people and lived and died in an humble 
condition." — Wilson. 

Burns was a poor ploughboy, with no advantages of education ex- 
cept those afibrded by the common country school. His early effu- 
sions were circulated at first in manuscript. Finding that they were 
in demand among his neighbors, he printed a volume of them at an 
obscure country town, in 1786. His special object in the publication 
was to get money to enable him to emigrate to Jamaica. The publi- 
cation yielded him a profit of £20, which seemed a fortune to the 
young author. He engaged his passage accordingly, sent his chest 
aboard the vessel, and was just about to set sail, when he received from 
Dr. Blacklock a letter inviting him to visit Edinburgh. The Doctor 
had fallen in with a copy of the poems, and encouraged Burns to be- 
lieve that an edition might be published in the capital. 

The poet changed at once his plans, and went to Edinburgh. There 
his wonderful abilities, in connection with the liumbleness of his posi- 



THE DEAMATISTS. 123 

tion, created a great sensation. Dugald Stewart, Robertson the his- 
torian, Dr. Hugh Blair, and all that was most aristocratic in either the 
intellectual or the social circles of that reserved and haughty metrop- 
olis, gathered in admiring wonder around this inspired peasant. A 
new edition of his poems was printed, which brought him at once the 
handsome sum of £700. He was caressed and feted on all sides, and 
being of an ardent temperament, he yielded to the temptation which 
these social festivities presented. He fell into the habit of drinking to 
intoxication, from whicli he never totally recovered, though he made 
sundry attempts at reform. He died at the early age of thirty-seven. 

Grahame. 

Eev. James Grahame, 1765-1811, is favorably known by his poem, 
The Sabbath. Grahame was born in Glasgow, and educated at its 
University. He followed the law for a time, but afterwards entered 
the ministry of the English Church. He was very acceptable as a 
preacher, but was obliged to give up his curacy on account of ill health. 
His poetry is of a very serious cast, and not at all to the taste of such 
men as Byron, who calls him " sepulchral Grahame." For all that, 
he has substantial merits and not a few admirers. 

Mrs. Inehbald. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Inehbald, 1756-1821, was a writer of considerable 
celebrity at the close of the last century. She was a native of Suf- 
folk, the daughter of Mr. Simpson, a farmer. At the age of sixteen, 
she came to London and made her debut upon the stage. Soon after- 
wards she married Mr. Inehbald, a leading actor. Mrs. Inehbald was 
extremely successful as an actress until her retirement in 1789. From 
that time she devoted herself exclusively to dramatic literature, pub- 
lishing a number of comedies and farces, and editing The British The- 
atre, a collection of plays, in 25 vols., with biographical and critical 
remarks ; also the Modern Theatre, in 10 vols. 



II. THE DRAMATISTS. 

Sheridan. 

Eichard Brinsley Butler Sheridan, 1751-1816, was a brilliant Par- 
liamentary orator. ITis chief distinction, however, was as a drama- 
tist. In this respect, he is inferior to Shakespeare only. As mere 
acting plays, those of Sheridan are coiLsidered the best in the language. 



124 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

His chief plays, Comedies, are the following : The Eivals, The Du- 
enna, The Critic, and The School for Scandal. The one last named is 
considered his masterpiece. 

Sheridan's fame from the authorship of these pieces was already 
very high. But he was destined to win other laurels, equally great. 
Having attracted the attention of the Whig party, he gained a seat in 
Parliament, and was an active supporter of Fox. In 1788, during the 
impeachment of Warren Hastings, Sheridan delivered his two so-called 
Begum speeches, the first of which was pronounced by acclamation the 
most wonderful single speech ever made in Parliament. When the orator 
had finished, the House was a scene of utter commotion and applause, 
cheering, and clapping of hands. So great was the confusion that no 
one else could be heard, and the House adjourned. It is greatly to be 
regretted that we have only a meagre and incorrect report of this 
wonderful performance. His other speeches, able as they are, do not 
justify any such extraordinary fame. 

Garrick. 

David Garrick, 1716-1779, the greatest of English actors, was also 
a man of letters, and was the intimate friend and associate of nearly 
all the great v/riters of England who were contemporary with him. 
In his youth Garrick went to school to Samuel Johnson, in Lichfield, 
and in 1736 master and pupil went to London together to seek their 
fortunes. Johnson became the autocrat among authors, Garrick the 
prince without a peer among actors. 

Foote. 

Samuel Foote, 1722-1777, is sometimes called the "English Aris- 
tophanes." He wrote a large number of comedies for his own acting, 
in a playhouse belonging to himself, the Little Theatre in the Hay- 
market. Foote' s Dramatic Works have been published in 4 vols., 
Bvo. THere is nothing specially notable in them, except their good- 
natured fun. 

Home. 

John Home, 1724-1808, acquired general celebrity by his play of 
Douglas. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and 
licensed to preach in the Church of Scotland. In 1757, he was obliged 
to withdraw from the ministry to avoid degradation, in consequence 
of having published, and had performed, his play of Douglas. He was 
the author of several plays, none of which, except the Douglas, met 



COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPOE ARIES. 125 

with any success. This last, a tragedy, was greeted with enthusiasm 
on the occasion of its first rendering, and has maintained its position 
ever since. Several of its scenes are unsurpassed for eflfectiveness 
upon the stage. 

III. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE WRITERS. 

Hannah. More. 

Hannah More, 1745-1833, was a "bright particular star" in the 
firmament of letters all through three of the periods marked in the pres- 
ent treatise, those, namely, of Johnson, Cowper, and Walter Scott. But 
she culminated during the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, 
and to that period accordingly she has been assigned. 

Though never married, she acquired by courtesy, in her later years, 
the title of 3Irs. Hannah More, according to a usage not then extinct 
in England. She wrote much both in verse and prose, but distinguished 
herself chiefly in the latter. 

Of all writers of her day, of either sex, none exerted by their writings 
a purer influence ; and she is entitled to lasting remembrance for the 
services which she rendered in improving and elevating the standard 
of private morals. She was pre-eminently the moralist of her gener- 
ation. 

Hannah More's earliest productions were dramatic. She afterwards 
abandoned writing for the stage, as inconsistent with her Christian 
character, but produced several sacred dramas, and numerous poems. 
She is best known by her Moral Tales and her Contributions to the 
Cheap Eepository Tracts. Among the latter is the famous Shepherd 
of Salisbury Plain. Among the former is Coelebs in Search of a Wife. 
She also wrote several essays, the principal of which are Strictures on 
the Modern System of Female Education, and Hints towards forming 
the Character of a Young Princess (for Charlotte, Princess of Wales). 

Madame D'Arblay. 

Madame Frances D'Arblay, 1752-1840, daughter and biographer 
of the great historian of music. Dr. Burney, lived to the extreme age 
of eighty-eight, which brings her in one sense within the present gen- 
eration. But her main activity was in the eighteenth century, and she 
belongs really to the times of Johnson, Burke, Cowper, and Hannah 
More. 

Fanny was a shy, sensitive child, and at the age of eight did not 
know her letters. Her mother dying when Fanny was ten, and her 
11* 



126 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

father from over-indulgence not putting her under the control of a 
tutor, she grew up into womanliood pretty much " according to her 
own sweet will." The musical reputation of Dr. Burney made his 
house the resort of all the great men of letters, Johnson, Burke, Garrick, 
and others, and it was the brilliant conversation of these men that first 
gave a stimulus to the thoughts of the reserved, but all-observing girl. 

Evelina, her first work, was written, according to her own account, 
when she was about seventeen or eighteen. She kept the composition 
of it entirely to herself for several years, and then sent it anonymously 
for publication. It became at once extremely popular, and gained the 
applause of the highest critics then known to the nation. Several 
other novels followed, all extremely popular. She wrote also a Me- 
moir of her father, Dr. Burney, in 3 vols. 

Miss Burney had the ill-fortune to be appointed to the post of the 
Keeper of Robes to Queen Charlotte. The life to which she Avas here 
subjected, was one peculiarly unsuited to her sensitive nature ; and 
though treated with gentle kindness by her royal patrons, she felt the 
position to be an intolerable bondage. She was married in 1793 to a 
French officer, Count D'Arblay, and in 1802 she accompanied him to 
Paris, where she remained until his death, in 1812. Her remaining 
years were spent in England. 

The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay were published after 
her death, in 7 vols., 8vo, and created considerable sensation on account 
of the eminent character of the persons among whom she had moved, 
and the unreserved nature of her observations. 

" Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did 
for the English drama. She first showed that a tale might be written 
in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life of London might be 
exhibited with great force, and with broad comic humor, and which 
yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid morality, 
or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach which lay 
on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She vindicated 
the right of her sex to have an equal share in a fair and noble promise 
of letters. Burke had sat up all night to read her writings, and Jolm- 
son had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when Eogers was still a 
school-boy, and Southey still in petticoats." — J/acaM^ay. 

Dr. Burney. 

Charles Burney, 1726-1814, father of Fanny Burney, just noticed, 

published in 1773 a History of Music, which is still a standard on the 

subject of which it treats. Dr. Burney (he received from Oxford the 

unusual degree of Doctor of Music) was eminent as a musician and 



COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 127 

a writer of music ; but gained liis cliief distinction by becoming the 
historian of the science. 

Mrs. Radeliffe. 

Mrs. Anna Eadcliffe, 1764-1823, attained great temporary distinc- 
tion as a novelist. One of her novels, the Mysteries of Udolpho, is 
unparalleled in its kind in English literature. About the beginning 
of this century Mrs. E-adclifFe was one of the bright stars of the lit- 
erary firmament, admired not merely by the vulgar worshippers of the 
novel, but by men of unquestioned genius. Sir Walter Scott, Talfourd, 
Dr. Warren, Byron, were among her enthusiastic readers. Yet so 
completely has the popular fancy changed, and the love of the un- 
natural and horrible been replaced by a taste for what is healthier, at 
least more life-like, that Mrs. EadclifFe is scarcely known to the public 
except by name, and scarcely read except by the professional student of 
literature. Her truly great contemporaries have waxed more and 
more in brightness, while she herself has waned into the obscurity of 
the upper shelves of the circulating library. 

Mackenzie. 

Henry Mackenzie, 1745-1831, is well known as a sentimental writer 
of this period, his Man of Feeling being an acknowledged classic in 
that line. Mackenzie's style resembles closely that of Sterne, and his 
writings are nearly all of the sentimental order. They are superior to 
Sterne's in purity of morals, but are decidedly inferior in vigor of in- 
vention and play of humor. 

Paine. 

Thomas Paine, 1736-1809, a political and infidel writer of the last 
century, acquired great temporary notoriety, partly by his connection 
with the American and the French Eevolutions, and partly by the reck- 
less hardihood of his writings. 

He sympathized warmly with the Americans in the contest with 
Great Britain, and in January, 1776, published the pamphlet. Common 
Sense, which made a prodigious sensation, and helped doubtless to pre- 
cipitate the crisis which took place on the 4th of July following. 

The terrible ferment of the French Revolution was of just the kind 
to awaken his active sympathies, and in 1791-2 he published in Lon- 
don the Rights of Man, in reply to Burke and in advocacy of the 
most extreme views of the French Republicans. The book had an 
enormous sale. Its views were so levelling and disorganizing in their 



i 



128 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

scope, and its effect was so great upon the lower classes in Great Britain, 
who were already in an unsettled and dangerous condition, that the 
Government was alarmed, and caused Paine to be prosecuted for sedi- 
tion and libel. 

In 1794-5, Paine published in London and Paris the Age of Reason, 
being a scurrilous attack on Christianity. Paine was a shallow man, 
whose knowledge was infinitesimal in proportion as his eflfrontery was 
infinite. The sensation that he produced was due to the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of the crisis in which he lived, more than to the ability of 
the man. His conceit of himself and of what he had done, was of 
a piece with the rest of his career. He really believed that he had 
given the death-blow to Christianity. "I have now gone through the 
Bible as a man would go through a wood, with an axe on his shoul- 
der, to fell trees. Here they lie ; and the priests, if they can, may 
replant them. They may perhaps stick them in the ground, but they 
will never make them grow." 

Paine returned to the United States in 1802, and died finally in the 
city of New York, in great obscurity, his closing years being marked 
by the coarsest profligacy and intemperance. 

Godwin. 

William Godwin, 1756-1836, is chiefly known by three works of an 
entirely different character: A Life of Chaucer, in two ponderous 
quarto volumes ; the novel of Caleb Williams, in which the element 
of the terrible was employed with a power hardly equalled elsewhere 
in English literature ; and an abstruse work on Political Justice, in 
wiiich the attempt was made to undermine the entire fabric of society, 
morals, and religion. 

Godwin was the son of a Dissenting minister, and was himself, for 
some years, minister to a Dissenting congregation. But at the age of 
twenty-six he abandoned the ministry, and gave himself up to literature 
as a profession, making London his permanent residence. 

Adam Smith. 

Adam Smith, 1723-1790, was the ablest writer of his age on political 
economy, and one of the ablest of all ages. His work, the Wealth 
of Nations, is an acknowledged classic on that subject. To its author 
belongs the rare merit of having created a new department of study. 
Before Smith's work, it is true, other writers had thrown out hints and 
ideas on special topics, but Smith was the first to follow them out, to 



1 



cow PEE AXD HIS COXTEMPOEAEIES. 129 

reduce the obscure and isolated gropings of would-be reforms to system 
and co-operation, to establish, generalize, and elucidate, — in short, to 
create the study of political economy. 

The publication of the Wealth of Nations marked a new era in 
himian research. Thinkers saw that they were in the presence of a 
new and almost unexpected power, that what had before been regarded 
as a confused and arbitrary jumbling of facts, was capable of being 
reduced to law and order, and that one of the great phases of social 
and political science must thenceforth be reconstructed from top to 
bottom. Some of the principles laid down by vSmith hare been aban- 
doned, others have been modified or expanded, new principles have 
been added. But, as a whole, the science of political economy is as 
Smith left it, and his book is perhaps the most readable manual for 
the beginner. Part of its success is due to the grace and vigor of its 
style. 

Paley. 

William Paley, T>. D., 17-i3-lS05, attained great and permanent 
celebrity by his writings on Moral Philosophy and kindred subjects. 
Paley s works are not so numerous as those of some divines of equal 
celebrity, but are of extraordinary excellence. They are Moral Phi- 
losophy, Natural Theology, Evidences of Christianity, and Horse Pau- 
linae. All these have been used as text-books in colleges and other 
institutions of learning, both in England and America, to an extent 
not equalled by any other set of books on the same subjects, and part 
of them are still used extensively, notwithstanding the many and able 
treatises on these subjects which have appeared since the days of 
Paley. 

Paley's theory of morals, basing duty upon expediency, is regarded 
as unsound, and many of the practical duties which he deduced from 
it are considered lax. Yet such is the clearness of his reasoning, and 
so valuable is his work in the other portions of it, that many instruc- 
tors even now prefer Paley's book on Moral Pliilosophy to any other, 
making in the class-room the corrections which may be needed. 

His Natural Theology, proving the existence and perfections of God 
from the evidences of design in his works, has never been superseded, 
and it probably never will be. The work on the Evidences, though 
excellent, has not been considered quite equal to his other works. 
The Horse Paulinse, however, is unsurpassed as a specimen of ingenious 
reasoning from circumstantial evidence, and it will probably hold its 
own to the end of time. 

Dr. Paley wrote some other things, and published many sermons, 

I 



130 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

but the four works named are all that are worth remembering. Of 
all who have written on these subjects, he stands unequalled for the 
clearness with which he expresses his ideas, and it is to his unrivalled 
power in this respect, rather than to any originality or depth as a 
thinker, that he owes his great and long-continued popularity. 

Reid. 

Thomas Eeid, D. D., 1710-1796, was an eminent Scotch metaphysi- 
cian. He was elected, in 1763, Professor of Moral Philosophy in 
King's College, Aberdeen, and afterwards Professor in the University 
of Glasgow. The latter position he held until his resignation, in 1781. 

Dr. Peid founded a new school of metaphysics. Its object was to 
combat the errors of Hume and Berkeley and other advocates of the 
Ideal Theory. The corner-stone of his philosophy was his doctrine of 
Immediate Perception. Previous philosophers had said that the 
senses give us ideas, and the mind perceives these ideas. Eeid con- 
tended that the mind perceives the objects themselves directly. An- 
other prominent point in his system was his doctrine of Common 
Sense. Previous philosophers had maintained that all knowledge is 
built up from experience originating in sensation. Peid asserted that 
certain elementary truths or principles are perceived by the mind in- 
tuitively, without reference to sensation or to the external world; that 
these truths, both intellectual and moral, are perceived alike by all 
men, and show thereby the existence in all of a faculty which he calls 
the Common Sense. Eeid's immediate disciple and the chief advo- 
cate of his philosophy was Dugald Stewart. The system, as a whole, 
has not held its ground. But some of his leading ideas, particularly 
those in regard to Immediate Perception and Common Sense or direct 
intuitions of intellectual and moral truths, are a part of the commonly 
received doctrines of the present day. 

Eeid's chief works are An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the 
Principles of Common Sense ; and Essays on the Intellectual Powers 
of Man. 

Adam Ferguson. 

Adam Ferguson, LL.D., 1724-1816, is favorably known both as a 
philosophical writer and an historian. He was for many years Pro- 
fessor in the University of Edinburgh, first in the department of Natu- 
ral Philosophy, and afterwards in that of Moral Philosophy. His 
principal works are Institutes of Moral Philosophy, and a History 
of the Eoman Eepublic, 5 vols., 8vo. The work last nsuned should 



COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 131 

be read as an introduction to Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Gibbon 
takes up the story where Ferguson leaves off. 

Hugh Blair. - 

Hugh Blair, D.D., 1718-1800, had a high reputation in his day as 
a writer of Sermons, and as the author of a course of Lectures on 
Ehetoric. Blair was one of a school of writers that prevailed in Edin- 
burgh near the close of the last century, who were remarkable for cor- 
rectness rather than for force and originality. His Sermons, the pub- 
lication of which began in 1777, had a greater popularity than any 
ever before known for works of that description. Dr. Johnson was 
unbounded in his admiration of them. The Sermons circulated rapidly 
and widely, wherever the English language was spoken, and they were 
translated into almost all the languages of Europe. After a time, 
however, a reaction took place ; the Sermons began to be criticised as 
wanting in spiritual unction, and as artificial and stifi* in composition. 
They wanted, it was said, that directness of purpose and expression, 
the earnestness and reality, which are essential to such writings. They 
have now fallen almost into oblivion ; and when mentioned at all, 
receive an estimate as much below, as the estimate of seventy years 
ago was above, their real worth. 

Besides the Sermons, Blair published Lectures on Ehetoric and 
Belles-Lettres. This work also was popular from the first, but its im- 
mediate popularity was not so great as that of the Sermons ; the Rhet- 
oric, however, has survived the Sermons ; it has been more used as a 
text-book on that subject, both in England and the United States, than 
any other book, and it is still widely used in both countries. 

Campbell. 

George Campbell, D.D., 1719-1796, Principal of Marischal College, 
was the author of a valuable work, the Philosophy of Ehetoric. 

Campbell wrote several other important works, among them A Dis- 
sertation on Miracles, in reply to Hume. 

Home Tooke. 
John Home Tooke, 1736-1812, wrote a work, the Diversions of 
Purley, which has exerted an extensive and lasting influence on 
English philology. In this work, the author undertakes to give a 
critical analysis of language, and particularly of words as the elements 
of language, and to establish the principles of lexicography and of 
verbal criticism. Tooke's learning was not sufficient for such an 



132 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

undertaking. But he had great acuteness; he made some most 
happy guesses as to the origin and force of particular words ; and he 
effectually demolished most of the traditional rubbish which had 
gathered around the subject. His work, though now in the main ob- 
solete, did a great and timely service to English philology. 

% 
Warton. 

,.- Thomas Warton, 1728-1790, is chiefly known by his History of 
English Poetry. Warton was educated at Oxford, where he was suc- 
cessively Fellow, Professor of Poetry, and Professor of Ancient His- 
tory. He was also Poet-Laureate from 1785 to 1790. He is mainly 
known by the work already named, A History of English Poetry, 3 
vols., 4to. The history is brought down only to the beginning of the 
eighteenth century. It is not very attractive in style, and not alto- 
gether accurate ; yet it contains much valuable matter not easily found 
elsewhere, and it did important service in calling attention to several 
neglected authors, whose works have since, in consequence of Warton' s 
remarks, and still more in consequence of his quotations from them, 
been thoroughly explored. 

Sir William Jones. 

Sir William Jones, 1746-1794, is the most distinguished name in 
the history of English Philology. He was born in London ; studied 
at Harrow and Oxford ; was private tutor in the family of Earl Spen- 
cer; was admitted to the bar in 1774; and in 1783 was appointed 
Judge of the Supreme Court at Fort William, India. . 

Other distinguished British philologists, such for instance as Bent- 
ley, Person, and Wilson, have surpassed him in accuracy of research 
in special fields, but none have equalled him in breadth of vision. 
At a time when the science of language had not yet been born, he was 
a proficient in many widely different languages. But the service by 
vfhich his name will ever be remembered is the presentation of the 
claims of the Sanscrit to the notice of European scholars. He was the 
first to announce the great fact that Sanscrit, Latin, and Greek are 
kindred tongues. This principle, afterwards developed so successfully 
by Bopp in his Comparative Grammar, has gained for Sir William 
Jones the title of Father of Comparative Philology. For, although 
the science has advanced wonderfully since then, and is now made to 
embrace all languages and dialects, there is no doubt but that the 
recognition of the great Indo-European family was the germ from 
which the whole has sprung. 



COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 133 

Bishop Percy. 

Thomas Percy, 1728-1811, gained for himself a permanent place in 
English literature by his publication of the Eeliques of Ancient English 
Poetry. This collection of old English ballads, it is not going too far 
to say, marked a new era in literature. It introduced a taste for the 
pure and healthy folk-ballad, which had^been lost during and since 
the age of the Restoration. The great minds in England and on the 
continent derived new delight and inspiration from the study of these 
Keliques of a half-forgotten age. AVe have only to turn to the biogra- 
phies of men like Goethe, Burger, Schiller, Scott, Byron, and Words- 
worth, to learn of their effect. Since Percy's day the good work begun 
by him has gone on unceasingly. Other and larger stores of folk-song 
have been discovered, more accurate scholarship and sounder criticism 
have developed themselves, but still the labors of Bishop Percy are 
not forgotten, and will not be so long as a genuine love of naive poetry 
remains. 

Walker. 

John Walker, 1732-1807, a celebrated elocutionist of London, is 
widely known from his connection with the English Dictionary. 
Walker was in early life an actor. At the age of thirty-five he left 
the stage, and engaged in teaching, which after two years he abandoned, 
and devoted himself to public lectures on Elocution. These he deliv- 
ered with great applause in England, Scotland, and Ireland. 

Walker had a quick ear, and was a careful observer of the sounds 
of the language ; and by taking note of the way in which the several 
words were uttered by educated people, and by the best public speakers, 
he was enabled to give a standard for the pronunciation of English 
words. His Pronouncing Dictionary became an authority, not on the 
ground of his dictum, but because he had carefully and judiciously 
selected for each word or set of words that pronunciation which was 
used by genteel and. educated people. It was an exact exhibit, pre- 
pared by an expert, of the actual pronunciation of English words by 
good society. The work was so well done, that it helped greatly to fix 
what is in itself arbitrary and fluctuating, and Walker's pronunciation 
has continued accordingly without material change to the present day 
— almost a century from the time when he began his work. Walker 
was not a lexicographer. He was simply an orthoepist and elocution- 
ist. All that he contributed to the Dictionary was to mark the pro- 
nunciation. 
12 



134 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

Lindley Murray. 

Lindley Murray, 1745-1826, holds about the same relation to Eng- 
lish Grammar that Walker holds to the English Dictionary. Murray's 
Grammar was, to many generations of school-boys and school-girls, the 
court in the last resort on all questions of correct speaking and writing. 

Murray, though an American by birth and education, is counted an 
English writer, as he became an Englishman by residence, and wrote 
all his works in England. He was born at Swatara, Lancaster County, 
Pennsylvania, and was educated in Philadelphia, at an academy of 
the Society of Friends, to which body he belonged. He began as 
a lawyer ; abandoned law for the counting-house ; retired early with 
a competence ; and then lived for some years on the Hudson, three 
miles above New York. In 1784, being a little over forty, he re- 
moved to England, and lived there the remainder of his days. 

His main works were his English Grammar and his English Reader. 
These, though marked by no special originality or scholarship, yet by 
their general correctness, and by their being pioneers in the ground 
which they covered, acquired a prodigious influence which is not even 
yet spent. 

Murray was no philologist, and no scholar in the proper acceptation 
of the term ; he was not even a grammarian, as the word is now under- 
stood. But he had a large fund of common sense, and he reduced to 
a practical form the grammatical principles advanced first by Wallis 
and afterwards by Bishop Lowth. As English Grammar before that 
time had only begun to be a common study, scholars previously get- 
ting their knowledge of grammar from their study of Latin, Murray's 
book came in to supply a want just beginning to rise ; and it acquired, 
and for a long time held, exclusive possession of the field. His Gram- 
mar was in various forms, from 2 vols., 8vo, down to small abridg- 
ments in 18mo, but the one chiefly in use was the 12mo, with which 
most readers are acquainted. 

Murray's English E-eader, with the Introduction, and the Sequel, 
had an enormous sale, both in England and America. Indeed, they 
are still extensively used in both countries, and probably always will 
be used. A better selection has never been made for such a purpose, 
and the books deserved the popularity which they enjoyed. They 
cannot adequately represent English literature at this day, for many 
of the best things which exist in the language were not yet written 
when Murray's compilations were made. But up to the year 1800, 
these Readers contain the very marrow and fatness of what English 
literature had to give. 



COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 135 

IV. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. 

The Wesleys. 

John Wesley, 1703-1791, and Charles Wesley, 1708-1788, are dis- 
tinguished as the founders of Methodism, the greatest religious move- 
ment since the Reformation. In their labors in England and elsewhere, 
the work of organization and management fell uj)on John, whose 
talents for administration have rarely been equalled. Charles was a 
zealous and efficient j)reacher, but is especially noted as a hymnist. 

A vein of poetry seems to have run through all the members of 
this remarkable family. The father, Samuel, wrote several volumes 
of poetry on religious subjects. Even John, in the midst of his over- 
whelming cares and labors, wrote many hymns, some of them excel- 
lent. Samuel, another brother, published a volume of poems. But 
in Charles, the associate of John in the great work of founding Meth- 
odism, this kind of faculty was developed to an extraordinary degree, 
and he turned it to excellent account in the work in which they were 
both engaged. The Hymns of Charles Wesley were a great help to 
John in giving form and expression to the new religious movement. 
No man has written so many hymns as Charles Wesley, and no one 
has written so many that have obtained general acceptance. As a lit- 
erary monument, they are worthy to be placed beside the other great 
productions of genius. 

John Wesley lived to his eighty-eighth year, and continued his life 
of incessant ministerial labors to the last, — travelling, preaching, and 
writing. It is said that during his ministry of fifty-three years, he 
travelled 225,000 miles, a great part of it on horseback, and preached 
more than 40,000 sermons. His printed works, as published immedi- 
ately after his death, filled 32 vols., 8vo. A later edition, revised and 
condensed, is in 14 vols., 8vo. It is impossible, in a work like the 
present, to particularize in regard to this great man. He wrote, as 
occasion required, on almost every topic growing out of the exigencies 
of a new religious community, — expository, hortatory, controversial, 
— and although no one work of his stands out as a special monument 
of genius, few men have left upon the minds of their race so strong 
and abiding an impression of their own individuality. 

\^^hitefield. 

George Whitefield, 1714-1770, was the founder of the Calvinistic 
branch of the Methodists, and was the greatest preacher of his day, if 
not the greatest uninspired preacher of all time. The accounts given 



136 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of the effects of Wliitefield's eloquence border on the marvellous, and 
would be set down to credulity, were they not authenticated by so 
many and such unimpeachable witnesses. That these effects were in 
a great measure the fruits of mere oratory, — of voice, tone, and ges- 
ture, — is evident from the fact that his published sermons are decid- 
edly commonplace, giving the reader no idea of unusual power or 
eloquence. Whitefield's Works and Life have been published in 7 
vols., 8vo. The contents consist of Letters, Journals, and Sermons. 

Toplady. 

Augustus M. Toplady, 1740-1778, was one of the ultra Calvinists 
of the English Church, and was noted for his assaults upon John Wes- 
ley on points of doctrine. Besides these controversial writings, Top- 
lady was the author of a large number of Hymns, many of them of 
great excellence. Some of Toplady's Hymns are found in nearly 
every collection. The hymn, Rock of Ages, the best probably in the 
language, will keep his memory fresh in the heart of the Christian 
Church long after his sharp controversial essays are forgotten, 

McKnight. 

James McKnight, 1721-1800, is celebrated as a Commentator and as 
a Harmonist. McKnight is known chiefly by two works, each a mon- 
ument of laborious diligence and scholarship. The first was a Har- 
mony of the Four Gospels, in which the natural order of each is pre- 
served, with a paraphrase and notes. McKnight's Harmony is one of 
the standard works in the literature of the subject. His other great 
work, on which he spent, it is said, nearly thirty years, is a JSTew Lit- 
eral Translation from the Original Greek of All the Apostolical Epis- 
tles, with a Commentary and Notes, philological, critical, explanatory, 
and practical, 4 vols., 4to. McKnight on the Epistles is also one of the 
standard works which every theologian wishes to have in his library. 
Neither of these works is exhaustive or final. The science of her- 
meneutics has made great advances since McKnight's day. Yet they 
are works of great ability and of original research, and no interpreter 
even now can safely pass them by as superseded. 

Milner. 

Joseph Milner, 1744-1797, a learned scholar and divine of the 
English Church, besides several works of less importance, published A 
History of the Church of Christ, in 5 vols., 8vo, which has been often 
printed, and which has led to much discussion. 



COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 137 



Neweome. 

William Newcome, D. D., 1729-1800, Archbishop of Armagh, in 
Ireland, is well known by his Harmony of the Gospels, and by his 
various writings on the subject of a new revision of the English version 
of the Scriptures. 

Watson. 

Kichard Watson, D. D., 1737-1816, a learned Bishop and theolo- 
gian of the Church of England, is known chiefly by an Apology for 
Christianity, in reply to Gibbon, and an Apology for the Bible, in re- 
ply to Paine. He published also a collection of Theological Tracts, 
6 vols., Svo, selected from various authors, and intended for the use of 
theological students. Watson's Theological Tracts have an excellent 
name, and have had an extensive circulation. 
12* 




I 




CHAPTER XII. 

Sir Walter Scott and his Contemporaries. 

(1800-1830.) 

The chief public events during the first quarter of the present cen- 
tury were the Napoleonic wars, and the political settlements which 
followed the downfall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons 
to the throne of France. No English writer during this period filled 
so large a space in the public mind as Sir Walter Scott. 

The writers of this period may be divided into six sections: 1. The 
Poets, beginning with Byron ; 2, The Novelists, beginning with Scott ; 
3. The Reviewers and Political Writers, beginning with Giffbrd ; 4. 
Philosophical and Scientific Writers, beginning with Dugald Stewart ; 
5. Keligious and Theological Writers, beginning with Scott the Com- 
mentator ; 6. Miscellaneous Writers, beginning with Mrs. Barbauld. 

I. THE POETS. 

Byron. 

George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1788-1824, was, on the whole, the 
greatest English poet of his day, although he had many illustrious 
competitors. His poems are indeed very unequal, and abound in pas- 
sages open to criticism. At the same time, it sliould be remembered 
that the amount which he wrote Vv'as large. If he often falls below the 
standard, and much that he has written could well be spared, a large 
amount still remains that is of a very high order of poetry, and there 
are passages in his works that are unsurpassed by anything in the lan- 
guage, except in the writings of Shakespeare. 

138 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPOR AEIES. 139 

Probably no English poet that has ever lived was so much read, 
quoted, and canvassed, during his lifetime, as Lord Byron. Everything 
in his social position, in his personal history and character, and in the 
character of his writings, seemed to contribute to this result. He was 
of noble family, though his estate had been impoverished by spend- 
thrift and prodigal ancestors. In person, though not faultless, he had 
yet such attractions of form and features and voice as amounted almost 
to a fascination. His talents, if not of the very highest order, were 
yet wonderful, and were precisely of the kind that dazzle and bewilder. 

Byron's first attempt at authorship led to an issue at arms with the 
highest critical authority then known, the Edinburgh Review, and by 
the very fierceness of the attack and reply brought his name imme- 
diately to every one's mouth. His marriage only led to an open 
scandal, the mystery of which is not even yet solved ; and by the high 
social position of the parties caused every utterance of the poet to be 
watched and analyzed. In addition to these things, the peculiar and 
irregular style of his lordship's writings, as well as of his life, caused 
everything to be in request that came from his pen. 

Byron's first publication, issued at the age of nineteen, was Hours 
of Idleness. It contained little worthy of notice, and it might have 
passed quietly into oblivion but for the ferocious criticism upon it by 
the Edinburgh Review, then at the height of its power. Byron was 
furious, and under the impulse of his first burst of passion, he wrote, 
almost at white heat, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which 
he slashed away, right and left, with great injustice, but with a degree 
of daring and vigor that gained for him at once the public ear and 
sympathy. He afterwards condemned his youthful poems as heartily 
as the Reviewer had done. He also acknowledged the injustice of his 
invective. But the afiair gave him instant notoriety. It awakened 
him also to a consciousness of his powers. 

Soon after this afiiiir, Byron travelled on the continent, and gave the 
result of his observations in the first portion of his next and greatest 
poem, Childe Harold. If the first publication made him notorious, 
this made him famous. 

Returning home, he entered Parliament, and took some part in 
public affairs. He was also married to Miss Millbanke, a lady of for- 
tune ; but after living together for a few months, they separated, for 
reasons admitted to be not creditable to him, tliough never clearly 
divulged. Lord Byron after this left England never to return. His 
remaining days were spent in Switzerland, Italy, and Greece, and he 
died in the noble effort to aid the Greeks in their struggle for in- 
dependence. 



140 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

Some of his other works, produced mostly during tlie irregular life 
that he led on the continent, were Sardanapalus, a Tragedy ; Cain, a 
Mystery; The Vision of Judgment; Don Juan; The Prisoner of 
Chiilon ; The Bride of Abydos ; The Dream ; Mazeppa ; " The Corsair ; 
The Siege of Corinth ; Lara ; Parisina, etc. The Memoirs of him by 
Moore must also be considered in giving an account of Byron's works, 
as these Memoirs are made up to a great extent of his own Letters. 

Byron has so identified himself with his works that the two must 
be estimated together ; and the settled judgment of the world is that 
he was a bad man. He had many shining and some noble qualities ; 
but he was a selfish libertine, both in his life and opinions, and he 
deserves the neglect towards which he is slowly but surely gravitating. 

Moore. 

Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, survived most of the writers who were 
his contemporaries, but his chief works were written in the early part 
of this century. Although he lived till 1852, he is associated in his- 
tory with Byron, Shelley, Southey, and the men of their time. 

His most important works are Lalia Eookh, a long poem, founded 
on eastern legend and gorgeous with oriental imagery, and his Irish 
Melodies. The last-named are unquestionably hi^ best. 

Few poets have been more successful than Moore, and this success 
is due, in part, to the consistency with which he devoted himself to 
one style of poetry. He never suffered himself to be tempted by am- 
bition into writing on grand themes, for which he felt himself unfitted. 
His verses are the smoothest and softest in the language, and never 
rise above the level of average sentiment. Even his Irish Melodies, 
which profess to give the spirit of the Irish people, are anything but 
true folk-songs. They have not the intensity and abruptness of pas- 
sion characteristic of that kind of verse. , Moore is always graceful 
in his imagery, but never sublime ; emotional, but not impassioned. 
The licentiousness which disfigured his earlier works disappeared in 
the later ones. Still, even at his best, Moore is not a grand lyric poet. 
He is merely a singer of sweet verse. 

Shelley. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822, was a poet of great and original 
genius, whose career was in many respects like that of Byron, with 
whom indeed he was intimately associated. 

While a student at Oxford Shelley printed, in London, a pamphlet 
headed A Defence of Atheism. It was intended, as he afterwards 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 141 

asserted, merely as a sort of dialectic challenge, probably after the 
fashion of the scholastics of the Middle Ages. Had he been content 
with merely publishing the pamphlet, the matter might have been 
ignored. But, in his youthful enthusiasm, he pressed himself so con- 
spicuously and so persistently upon the attention of the University 
authorities, that they were forced to expel him publicly, as an atheist. 

A few months afterwards he made a runaway match with the daugh- 
ter of a retired hotel-keeper. There does not appear to have been 
much love on Shelley's part. Before the end of three years they were 
separated. Two years after the separation (1816) Mrs. Shelley com- 
mitted suicide by drowning. Soon after the death of his first wife, 
Shelley married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, with wliom he had been 
travelling on the continent. In 1818 he left England never to see it 
again. The remaining four years of his life were passed in Italy, 
during a part of which time he was very intimate with Byron. On 
June 30, 1822, he was drowned by the upsetting of a boat in the Bay 
of Spezzia. His body was washed ashore, and, in accordance with the 
Tuscan quarantine law then prevailing, was burned by the authorities. 
The ashes were deposited in Eome. 

His earliest work of note, (^ueen Mab, published in 1813, is little 
more than a treatise in defence of Atheism, full of conceits, and oiFer- 
ing occasionally fine passages. The best of his long poems are the 
Prometheus Unbound, and the Adonais, or Elegy on Keats. Some of 
his minor poems are surpassingly beautiful. 

Keats. 

John Keats, 1796-1821, was a poet of great promise, who died be- 
fore reaching the full maturity of his powers. His principal poems 
are Endymion, Hyperion, and the Eve of St. Agnes. 

Kirke Vv^hite. 

Henry Kirke White, 1785-1806, gave in very early life evidence 
of poetical genius, but died before accomplishing anything of perma- 
nent value. White's place is among those poets who attract us more 
through sympathy with their adverse fate than by the intrinsic value 
of their productions. His poems unquestionably possess merit, but 
not .such merit as entitles the poet to rank in the first or even the 
second class. His verses are rather plaintive and agreeable than vig- 
orous. The best known of them are : The Star of Bethlehem, To an 
Early Primrose, Song of the Consumptive, Savoyard's Keturn, etc. 



142 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Campbell. 

Thomas Campbell, 1777-1844, has an honored place among the 
fixed stars of the poetical firmament. His poems are not so consider- 
able in amount as those of some other writers. But there is an excel- 
lence and finish in all that he did write that secures for him a perma- 
nent place in letters. 

Campbell was born and educated in Glasgow, and was early distin- 
guished for his proficiency in classical studies. His first publication, 
the Pleasures of Hope, at once gaye him rank as a poet of mark. 
Being on a visit to the continent, he was a spectator of the battle of 
Hohenlinden, and commemorated the scene in the brilliant poem with 
which we are all familiar. While abroad, he wrote two other of his 
most popular lyrics, Ye Mariners of England, and The Exile of Erin. 
On returning to Scotland, he wrote Lochiei's Warning ; subsequently 
appeared Gertrude of Wyoming ; The Battle of the Baltic ; The Pil- 
grim of Glencoe, and other Poems. 

As a lyric and didactic poet, Campbell has few superiors in English 
literature. Some of his poems seem absolutely perfect. 

Rogers. 

Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855, the banker, poet, art collector, and giver 
of breakfasts, is as well known by his Pleasures of Memory as is 
Campbell by the Pleasures of Hope. 

Eogers was the son of a banker, and inherited, with his younger 
brother, a profitable business, from the active management of which 
he retired when little more than thirty. The remaining sixty years 
of his protracted life were passed in the cultivation of letters, the arts, 
and society. He gathered around his social board all that was genial 
and distinguished in each successive generation. Like Henry Crabb 
Robinson, he remained a bachelor. Indeed, there is throughout the 
lives of both a striking parallelism. There is, however, this difference, 
that Rogers is known chiefly by his original works, Robinson by his 
diary. 

Although Rogers lived almost to our day, his works belong to a 
former generation. His Pleasures of Memory appeared in 17'92, and 
Italy, his greatest work, in 1823. 

Rogers is a finished versifier, and his lines betray a cultured mind. 
Especially in his Italy does he show himself to be a man of great 
liberality in his judgments of what might have been distasteful to 
him as an Englishman and a Protestant. There can be no doubt 
that he has exercised a wholesome influence, indirectly, upon the 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPORAEIES. 143 

development of English literature, by widening the range of its sym- 
pathies and its culture. When we compare him, however, with his 
great contemporaries, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, we 
can scarcely fail to perceive that he was lacking in real poetic inspi- 
ration. - 

Southey. 

Eobert Southey, 1774-1843, was another of the great literary celeb- 
rities in the earlier part of the present century. His fame and for- 
tunes are intimately associated with those of Coleridge and Words- 
worth. He was not equal to either of them in genius, but he had 
abilities of a high order. He was methodical and unwearied in 
labor, and he made himself, while he lived, a magnate in the world 
of letters. 

Southey' s early career was in striking contrast with the latter part 
of his life. At Westminster School, he was expelled for a satire on 
corporal punishment. At Oxford, he became an ultra radical in 
politics and a Unitarian in religion. Soon afterwards he formed, with 
Coleridge, the plan of founding a " pantisocracy " in Pennsylvania, 
but, as neither of them had any money, the plan was abandoned. 
After essaying the law, and one or two other projects, he finally set- 
tled down to literary occupation. The once enthusiastic radical and 
Unitarian now became the staunch supporter of Church and State. 
He fixed his residence, in 1803, at Greta Hall, not far from Words- 
worth, in that lovely region which has become famous under the 
name of the " lake district " of England. Here, in literary labor and 
seclusion, he passed the remainder of his days. 

Southey's works are extremely voluminous, both in prose and 
verse, and cover a wide range of subjects. Southey the poet, so 
famous in his day, and ranked with Wordsworth, Byron, Scott, and 
Coleridge, is now comparatively ignored. His extravagance and 
want of naturalness are repugnant to the tastes of this realistic age. 
His poems abound indeed in beautifal and striking passages, but are 
faulty in conception and tedious in execution. Some of his prose 
works, on the contrary, such as the Life of Nelson and the Life of 
Wesley, will always rank among English prose classics. 

Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth were grouped together, under 
the title of " The Lake Poets," by the Edinburgh Keview. Li one 
sense, the epithet had some foundation, for they all lived near each 
other, in what is known as the Lake region of England. But if in- 
tended to mark a school of poetry, the term was a complete mis- 
nomer. It would be impossible to find in English history any other 



144 ENGLISH LITERATURE. . 

three contemporaries that have so few features in common, or who 
have borrowed so little inspiration one from the other. 

Coleridge. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, was, of all the contemporary 
writers, the man most endowed by nature with genius. But the fit- 
ful and irregular character of his mental action prevented his accom- 
plishing any great and completed work commensurate with his 
acknowledged genius. His poetic fame rests on two poems, both of 
singular, almost supernatural power ; yet one, Christabel, is only a 
fragment, the other. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, more nearly 
complete in itself, is only a part of an incompleted whole. The like 
is true of his prose writings, — they are, at the best, only splendid 
fragments. 

Coleridge was at first a pupil of Christ Hospital, where he gained 
distinction for scholarship, as he did afterwards when a student at 
Cambridge. But being disappointed in a love-affair while at the 
University, he left the place without graduation, and enlisted by 
stealth in the army. 

In 1794, he became intimate with Southey. Both of them at that 
time were ardent republicans, and admirers of the French Revolu- 
tion. Both also were Unitarians in religion. Needy, restless, and 
fall of the spirit of adventure, the young poets devised the scheme 
already named of emigrating with some friends to America, and 
there founding on the bank of the Susquehanna a Utopian republic, 
or Pantisocracy, the distinguishing feature of which should be a 
community of goods. Through tlie liberality of Josiah and Thomas 
Wedgewood, the well-known potters, Coleridge was enabled in 1798 
to go to Germany, where he studied with great diligence in the Uni- 
versity of Gottingen. On returning to England, he settled at Kes-, 
wick, in the Lake District of Westmoreland, where also Southey and 
Wordsworth resided. A few years later, Coleridge renounced Uni- 
tarianism, and adopted the creed of the Anglican Church ; he made 
a like change in his political opinions, having become disgusted with 
the excesses of the French Republicans. His habits of living being 
irregular, and his health failing, he fell into the way of taking opium, 
which added greatly to his other infirmities, and made him for years 
a most pitiable spectacle. He was rescueil from this condition, how- 
ever, and spent his declining years in the hospitable refuge of a gen- 
erous physician. Dr. Gilman, of London. 

The universal testimony of competent' judges is, that Coleridge's 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPOR A EIES. 145 

natural endowments were of the very highest order. Method and 
industry, such method and industry as mark the career of Tennyson, 
of Mihon, and of Shakespeare, would have made him the equal, pos- 
sibly the superior, of any of these great men. Even from the desul- 
tory and fitful efforts of his genius which remain, he ihust be regarded 
as one of the great men of all time. His powers as a conversationist, 
or rather as a talker, for he did not converse, have probably never 
been equalled ; and had there been a Boswell to gather up all these 
brilliant sayings which fell from his lips, the record would have 
been of inestimable value. Much of his conversation has been 
preserved in the Table-Talk, published after his decease. But we 
have no such minute report as that which Boswell gave of Dr. 
Johnson. 

Works. — Coleridge's works are chiefly the following : The Eime of 
the Ancient Mariner; Christabel; Aids to Reflection; Lectures on 
Shakespeare ; Table-Talk ; Biographia Literaria. 

Joanna Baillie. 

Joanna Baillie, 1764-1851, was a dramatist of great celebrity, con- 
temporary with Sir Walter Scott, Sir James Mackintosh, Jefirey, 
Southey, Byron, and Coleridge, and was eminent even among those 
great names. She was born near Glasgow, Scotland, but spent most 
of her life and achieved her principal literary successes in the neigh- 
borhood of London. 

'Her dramas were published under the title of Plays on the Pas- 
sions, her plan being to make each passion the subject of two plays, a 
tragedy and a comedy. They are intended rather for reading than 
for representation. She herself did not frequent the theatre, and was 
not familiar with its arrangements. As reading - plays, they are 
accepted by the highest critical authorities as among the grandest 
works of the poetical art. 

Mrs. Hemans. 

Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans, 1794-1835, was, during her life, a 
leading favorite, her poems being read, admired, and quoted by almost 
everybody, and on almost all occasions. 

Mrs. Hemans was a native of Liverpool, daughter of a Mr. Browne, 
a merchant of that city. She was married at eighteen to Captain 
Hemans, of the British army. The union was not a happy one, and, 
after living together for six years, they separated. Captain Hemans 
went to Italy to take care of himself, and remained there j Mrs. 
13 K 



146 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

Hemans remained at home to rear and educate the five sons who were 
the fruits of their ill-assorted marriage. It redounds to her honor 
certainly that these domestic infelicities found no voice in her song. 
She bore her griefs in dignified silence, and did not, like Byron, coin 
her heart-pangs into marketable verse. 

Mrs. Hemans wrote no long poems, but a large number of occasional 
pieces, and at the time of her death was an almost universal favorite, 
both in England and America. Even Sir Archibald Alison speaks of 
her as a rival to" Coleridge! But her reputation has been steadily on 
the wane for the last thirty or forty years. The truth is, she wrote 
pleasing things with infinite prettiness, but she had no true creative 
genius. 

Elizabeth Landon. 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon, afterwards Mrs. Maclean, and generally 
known as L. E. L., 1802-1838, was pne of the literary celebrities in 
the early part of this century. She was a native of London, and 
daughter of Dr. Landon, Dean of Exeter. In 1838, she was married 
to Mr. George Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Castle, and sailed for 
her new home. There, in October of the same year, she died from an 
accidental overdose of prussic acid, — an article which she had been 
in the habit of taking for hysteric affections. 

Miss Landon had attained a high reputation, especially by her poetry, 
and was at the time of her death one of the celebrities of the literary 
world. She was undoubtedly a woman of genius, and had she lived, 
she might have achieved substantial and permanent greatness. But 
her works, when read at the distance of thirty or forty years from the 
time of their composition, and apart from the romantic circumstances 
of her life, do not confirm the judgment of her contemporaries. 

Crabbe. 

George Crabbe, 1754-1832, is the poet of the poor and the lowly. 
Though not so much read as he once was, he still holds his place as a 
favorite with the public. Crabbe was born in humble circumstances, 
and in working his way upward encountered many hardships. 

The first poem of his that obtained a marked success was The Vil- 
lage. It contained vivid descriptions of scenes among the poor, such 
as he himself had been familiar with, and it was instantly and thor- 
oughly popular. After that, whatever he produced was in demand. 
His other poems are: The Parish Register, The Borough, Tales in 
Verse, and Tales of the Hall. 



SCOTT. AND HIS CONTEMPOE ARIES. 147 

The chief characteristic of his poetry is the extreme accuracy of the 
descriptions, and his partiality for subjects which are in themselves 
dull and even forbidding. He was undoubtedly a poet of great power 
and even, at times, of tenderness, but his pathos is usually linked to 
something coarse and humiliating. The reader is affected, but he is 
not drawn to read a second time. 

Heber. 

Keginald Heber, D. D., 1783-1826, is justly celebrated for his noble 
work as a missionary Bishop in India, and for his missionary hymn, 
"From Greenland's icy mountains." 

Heber was educated at Oxford, where he was distinguished for his 
classical. scholarship, and for the elegance of his English style. His 
learning, accomplishments, and genius would have insured him high 
preferment in the church, had he remained at home. In accepting the 
Bishopric at Calcutta, he was influenced by the true self-denying spirit 
of a Christian minister, and he entered upon its duties with the great- 
est zeal. He died in India, at the early age of forty-three. 

His principal works are : Palestine, a Poem, which gained a prize 
at Oxford, while the author was a student there ; Hymms, adapted to 
the Weekly Church Service ; and A Journey through India, 2 vols. 

Bishop Heber was one of the most accomplished and scholarly 
divines that the Church of England has produced in modern times. 
His one Missionary Hymn, however, will survive all else that he wrote 
or did, and will carry his memory to the latest generation. 

Hogg. 

James Hogg, 1770-1835, is known as " The Ettrick Shepherd." He 
was born in a cottage on the banks of the Ettrick River in Selkirkshire, 
Scotland, and passed his early life as a shepherd. His most celebrated 
work was the Queen's Wake, a collection of ballads. 

Like Burns, Hogg was at one time the lion of Scotch society. The 
latter part of his life was spent in rustic retirement. Hogg's poetry 
has received its full measure of praise, and although no longer the 
fashion, is still much read. The poems are by no means equal' in exe- 
cution, but those that are good are very good — the sparkling emana- 
tions of a pure poetic fancy. 

Bloorafield. 
Eobert Bloomfield, 1766-1823, an unlettered shoemaker, while 
working in a garret with six or seven others, composed a poem, the 



# 



148 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Farmer's Boy, wliicli set all England ablaze, and made its author, for 
the time, '' the observed of all observers." In three years, twenty-six 
thousand copies of the Farmer's Boy were sold, — an enormous sale 
for those days, — and the book was reprinted on the continent, besides 
being translated into French, Italian, and Latin. The whole of this 
poem was composed in the author's head and completed, before a line 
of it was written. 

Bloomfield is not much read now. The quiet scenes of country life 
which he describes are too tame to suit the present taste. Besides, the 
universal and romantic circumstances attending his introduction to 
the literary world led naturally, for a time, to an exaggerated estimate. 
His work was compared, not with the great works of all time, but with 
what might be expected from a poor, uneducated laborer, working in 
his garret in the daily toil and struggle for bread. 

Pollok. 

Eobert Pollok, 1799-1827, acquired for a time a prodigious reputa- 
tion by his poem, the Course of Time. Pollok was a native of Scot- 
land. He studied at the University of Glasgow, and was about enter- 
ing the ministry when cut down by disease, brought on by excessive 
study. His poem was at one time a great favorite, and is still read and 
admired by many. The commonly received opinion is, that it has 
many good and even brilliant passages, but that, as a whole, it is weak 
in conception, and weak in execution. It is the work of an immature 
mind. In passing judgment upon the Course of Time, however, it 
should be kept in mind that its author died before reaching maturity. 
For one of his age it is certainly a remarkable production, leaving on 
the mind of the reader a deep regret that the author could not have 
attained to full development. 

II. THE NOVELISTS. 

Sir W^alter Seott. 

Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832, after placing himself among the fore- 
most writers of his day as a poet, outstripped both himself and them 
by his unbounded success as a novelist. Even as a very young boy, 
Scott was noted for his ability as a story-teller. In the High-School, 
and at the University, he was the idol of a select circle, who gathered 
around him in recess hours, to listen delighted to his improvisations. 

His three great poems were the Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805, 
Marmion, 1808, and the Lady of the Lake, 1810. In five years, he 
had placed himself at the head of his generation. 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 149 

We of the .present day, -with, our tardy and carefully discriminating 
appreciation, find it difficult to realize the unbounded enthusiasm with 
which the men and women of fifty years agt^-read, or rather devoured 
these poems. The author^s pecmiiary profits from the sale of his poems 
were equal to his literary laurels. He purchased Abbotsford, near 
Melrose Abbey, and spent immense sums upon the estate, in the efibrt 
to convert it into a magnificent baronial mansion of the old style. 
Living here in princely style, he made Abbotsford*famous throughout 
the literary world, a synonym for lavish hospitality and fraternal re- 
union. To Abbotsford betook itself year after year all that was 
famous in art, literature, and science. Men of every country and 
profession were welcomed to its hospitable walls, and peer, prelate, 
and aspirant after fame came and went in ceaseless succession. 

Meanwhile the great wizard himself, the spell that kept together 
this gay concourse, was not resting on his laurels. In 181-4 appeared, 
anonymously, Waverly, the first of the magnificent series of novels 
which goes by that name. The authorship was immediately ascribed 
to Scott, but persistently repudiated. In quick succession came Guy 
Mannering, the Antiquary, Old Mortality, Eob Roy, the Heart of 
Midlothian, the Bride of Lammermoor, year by year ofae or more, 
until the secret could no longer be kept, and it was proclaimed to the 
world that Scotland's greatest poet was also the greatest novelist of 
his age. 

But the picture was soon to have its dark side. In 1826 Constable, 
and the Ballantynes, both large publishing firms, failed disastrously. 
Scott, who had been for some time a secret partner, was involved in 
the ruin, and was liable for their joint "debts, amounting to over half a 
million of dollars. With heroic courage he gave up his estate at 
Abbotsford in part-payment, and devoted the remainder of his life to 
writing himself out of debt. He succeeded, but the effort cost him his 
life. Xot usuffering himself to be interrupted even by the death of his 
beloved wife, in 1826, or by repeated attacks of ill health, he produced 
volume after volume — the conclusion of the Waverly series, the His- 
tory of Napoleon, and the Tales of a Grandfather — until he sank into 
the grave, an overworn but not a broken-hearted man. His funeral 
was unostentatious, but the procession was over a mile long, and all 
Scotland and England sent its mourners. 

No purely literary character was ever the recipient of greater spon- 
taneous honor, in life and in death, than Sir Walter Scott. In the 
year 1871, the centennial anniversary of his birth was celebrated with 
an outburst of entliusiasm which carried the present generation back 
to the days of jSIarmion and Waverly. 
13- 



150 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



In estimating Scott's genius, we should be careful to distinguish be- 
tween the poet and the novelist. As a poet, Scott is only in the second 
class. He is far surpassed in imagination by Tennyson, Browning, and 
Longfellow; in power and breadth of conception, by Byron. His 
Marmion and Lady of the Lake are not great creations. Yet their 
diction is so spirited, their fundamental conceptions are so pure and 
cheerful, they suggest such a glamour of forest and mountain, lake and 
heather, that they will ever remain among the most delightful gems of 
the great English treasure-house. On the other hand, as a novelist, 
and a delineator of character, he is unsurpassed. It is the fashion,, 
among writers of a certain class, to speak of Scott as superseded by 
Thackeray and Dickens. In a measure this is true ; every writer, no 
matter how great, is crowded out more or less by his successors. Isot 
even Shakespeare, Dante, and Goethe have been exceptions to the rule. 
But it may well be pondered, whether, years from now, when the final 
muster-roll of English novelists is called, Scott's name will not head 
the list — whether Meg Merrilies, Jeannie Deans, Caleb Balderstone, 
Domine Sampson, Kebecca of York, Dirck Hatterick, Dandie Din- 
mont. Flora Mac Ivor, Kob Eoy, Dugald Dalgetty, will not shine, like 
the older windows of the cathedral at Cologne in the evening twilight, 
clear and unfaded, while their younger and aml^itious rivals, even 
Becky Sharpe, Major Pendennis, Ethel ^""ewcome, Sam Weller, Mrs. 
Gamp, and Mr. Micawber, will appear by their side slightly dimmed 
and tarnished. 

Scott is nowhere so great as when he remains on his native heath. 
His Scottish novels are pre-eminently his best. His Tory prejudices and 
blindness of vision have passed away with the generation to which they 
were native, and there remain only his broad love of humanity, his cheery 
smile and quaint humor. To Scott belongs the honor of lifting the 
English novel from the dreary depths of the rakedom and sentimen- 
tality of the eighteenth century, and placing it upon the lasting foun- 
dations of good breeding, good morals, and good sense, from which no 
one henceforth can depart and be safe. 



Maria Edge^worth. 

Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849, holds a high rank as a writer of' 
novels and tales, and of works on education. Miss Edgeworth was the 
daughter of Eichard Lovell Edgeworth. Mr. Edgeworth was himself 
a man of letters, and an author of celebrity, particularly in works on 
education. Several of Maria's works were written in conjunction with 
her father. Those written by herself alone are chiefly Novels and 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPOEAEIES . 151 

Tales. They are descriptive of domestic and social life, and are so 
shaped and constructed as to teach the doctrines of morals and educa- 
tion with as much clearness as if they had been treatises on those sub- 
jects, and with a good deal more efficiency than most treatises. For 
their truthfulness and vividness of description, and their skill in the 
delineation of character, they have received the highest encomiums 
from all classes of critics, and they have been perused with unabated 
delight by several generations of readers, both in England and America. 
Young and old alike delight in Miss Edge worth's Tales. 

Miss Austen. 

Jane Austen, 1775-1817, was the author of several novels of a high 
order of merit. Those best known are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and 
Sensibility. Critics of the highest order speak of Miss Austen's novels 
in terms of strong commendation. Sir Walter Scott says, her portraits 
of society are far superior to anything of a like nature produced by 
writers of the other sex. 

Jane Porter. 

Miss Jane Porter, 1776-1850, was the author of many works, some 
of which have made her name famous. Two of these, Thaddeus of 
Warsaw, and The Scottish Chiefs, are as widely known as any books 
of their class in the language. They are read by every school-boy 
and school-girl in the sentimental period of life, and call forth a peren- 
nial outburst of tears or enthusiasm. Neither work is distinguished 
for historical accuracy or profound insight into human nature. Yet 
the two are unique, and will be read and enjoyed by each successive 
generation of youth by reason of their sweet style and sentiment. 

Lady Blessington. 

Margaret, Countess of Blessington, 1787-1849, was celebrated in her 
day for her literary abilities and her personal charms, and her at- 
tractions in both respects were greatly increased by her high social 
position. Lady Blessington was the daughter of an Irish gentleman, 
Edmund Power. She was married, first, at the age of fifteen, to Cap- 
tain Farmer of the British army, and afterwards, at the age of thu-ty- 
one, to the Earl of Blessington. On his death. Lady Blessington, then 
at the age of forty-two, established herself in London, where for twenty 
years, from 1829 to 1849, her house was the centre both of fashion and 
of letters, for a large and brilliant circle. She was celebrated equally 



152 ENGLISH LITEKATUEE. 

for her beauty and her wit ; and she wrote with the same ease and 
grace with which she talked. Lord Byron was a great admirer of 
her, and one of her most charming works is that in which she gives 
an account of her conversations with him. 



III. REVIEWERS AND POLITICAL WRITERS. 

Gifford. 

"William Gifford, 1756-1826, obtained distinction in various walks 
of authorship, but is chiefly known by his labors as editor of the 
London Quarterly Eeview. 

Gifford' s first publication was the Baviad, a poetical satire, published 
in 1794, and directed against various second-class writers and pre- 
tenders to literature. His next was the Mseviad, 1795, likewise a 
satire, and aimed at the dramatists of the day. Both poems were suc- 
cessful. In 1802, he published a translation of Juvenal, which has 
been pronounced on good authority to be " the best poetical version 
of a classic in the English language." He performed a large amount 
of critical work in editing old English authors. He gave critical edi- 
tions of Massinger, 4 vols., 8vo. ; Ben Jonson, 9 vols., 8vo. ; Ford, 2 
vols., 8vo. ; Shirley, 6 vols., 8vo. 

Gifford's crowning work, however, was his editorship of the London 
Quarterly Bevjew, from 1809, the time of its inception, to 1824. Here 
he reigned supreme for a period of fifteen years, and his reign was one 
of terror. He was a man of great acuteness of intellect, coarse and 
savage in disposition, lynx-eyed to detect blemishes, and relentless in 
exposing them, yet enjoying a lar^e measure of consideration in the 
literary world on account of the power which he wielded by virtue of 
his editorial position, and which he used with incessant and remorse- 
less activity. 

Mackintosh. 

Sir James Mackintosh, 1765-1832, obtained great and deserved 
celebrity as a writer on subjects connected with statesmanship and 
national polity. He was a native of Scotland ; was educated at Aber- 
deen, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh ; abandoned the 
profession for the law ; held the posts of recorder and admiralty judge 
under the East India Company ; returned to England and was elected 
to Parliament ; afterwards occupied the chair of politics and history 
in the College at Haylebury. 

Mackintosh's principal works were a Dissertation on the Progress 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 153 

of Ethical Philosophy, Lectures on the Law of Nature and of Nations, 
and a History of England (not finished). He wrote also a number of 
articles for the Edinburgh Eeview. 

Mackintosh seems to have been greater as a man than as a writer. 
At least, no one of his works equals the wonderful reputation that he 
himself enjoyed among his contemporaries. The explanation is found 
in the fascinations of London society and the brilliant role played in 
it by Sir James. Li a circle of wits and writers, he was the brightest 
light. His good-nature, his quickness, and his wonderful powers of 
memory invested him with a charm that fascinated everybody, and 
tempted him to lead a life of society which prevented him from achiev- 
ing any results commensurate with his abilities. 

Hazlitt. 

William Hazlitt, 1778-1830, wrote much on literary and political 
subjects. He contributed a number of articles to the Edinburgh Re- 
view, and wrote several lectures upon English Poetry, English Comic 
Writers, the Age of Elizabeth, etc. In Hazlitt' s writings, merit is 
strangely jostled by demerit. He had a wide range of sympathy and 
appreciation, but was subject to blind prejudices. Especially was this 
defect manifest in his treatment of authors then living. He seemed 
incapable of appreciating a writer until he was dead. In the words 
of Professor Wilson, he reversed the proverb, and thought a dead ass 
better than a living lion. 

Canning. 

George Canning, 1770-1827, was a statesman and Parliamentary 
leader of great celebrity. In conjunction with some others. Canning 
started a satirical journal, the Anti- Jacobin, which was intended to 
ridicule and discountenance the principles of the French Eevolution. 
The poetry of the Anti-Jacobin was remarkable for the keenness of 
its wit. One of the pieces contributed by Canning, the Knife-Grinder, 
a burlesque upon Southey, has been greatly admired. Mr. Canning 
had a strong propensity for literary pursuits, and would doubtless have 
made a great figure in the world of letters, had not his talents been 
put in requisition in the more important science of governing a great 
empire. 

Cobbett. 

William Cobbett, 1762-1835, was an English political writer of 
great notoriety. He wrote under the name of Peter Porcupine, and 
exercised his vocation partly in the United States and partly in 



154 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

England. After a somewliat chequered career, Cobbett settled in 
Philadelphia in 1796, and started Peter Porcupine's Gazette, in which 
he entered with great bitterness and violence into the political ques- 
tions of the day. In 1800 he returned to England and began a similar 
course there. He came again to the. United States in 1817, but went 
back finally to England in 1819, taking with him the bones of the 
infidel, Tom Paine. 

Cobbett did not mistake in naming himself "Porcupine." He 
bristled all over, and against everybody in turns, and was always in 
hot water. He was prosecuted and fined several times for slander, and 
once he was imprisoned. He was as untruthful as he was ill-natured. 
Apart from his moral delinquencies, Cobbett was a writer of great 
merit. His style is almost universally commended. He was a perfect 
master of that plain, homespun idiom which all understand, and he 
expressed himself with amazing clearness. He was especially remark- 
able for his rough common sense, and his powers of sarcasm. 



IV. PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ^A/■RITERS. 

Dugald Stewart. 

Dugald Stewart, 1753-1828, was the leading metaphysical writer in 
Great Britain during all the early part of the present century. He was 
born in Edinburgh, his father being at the time Professor of Mathe- 
matics in the University. In 1772, being then eighteen years old, 
young Stewart began assisting his father in the instruction of the 
mathematical classes at Edinburgh, and continued in that department, 
jointly with his father, until 1785. On the resignation of Ferguson, 
in 1785, Stewart was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy, and con- 
tinued to fill the chair for twenty-five years. His lectures were greatly 
admired, and added much to the renown of the University. 

In his philosophy, Stewart was a disciple of Eeid, and followed 
up the reaction which Eeid had begun, against the 'doctrines of 
Hume and Berkeley. Although not one of the most original or pro- 
found thinkers in his department, yet by the elegance of his style, his 
clearness of statement, and the great compass of his writings, he did 
more than any man in his day to difiuse an interest in speculations 
connected with the human mind. 

His principal works are : Elements of the Philosophy of the Hu- 
man Mind ; Outlines of Moral Philosophy ; The Philosophy of the 
Active 'and Moral Powers ; Lectures on Political Economy ; A Gen- 
eral View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political 
Philosophy, since the Revival of Letters. 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPOE ARIES. 155 

Thomas Brow^n. 

Thomas Brown, M. D., 1778-1820, a distinguislied Scotcli meta- 
physician, was the colleague and successor of Dugald Stewart in the 
chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. The 
work which first gave him a world-wide celebrity was a treatise on 
Cause and Effect. The theory of causation which he introduced, 
though since generally abandoned as untenable, was presented with 
such clearness of statement and such wonderful vigor and beauty of 
style, that it took the public by storm. Critics of all schools were 
loud in its praise. 

Abererombie. 

John Abererombie, M. D., 1781-1844, who was at his death at the 
head of his profession in Scotland as a physician, was equally emi- 
nent as a writer of medical works, and as a writer on metaphysics. 
His works of the latter class are the Philosophy of the Moral Feel- 
ings, and the Intellectual Powers. The work last named has had an 
extended and general popularity. Though not profound, it is clear 
and easily understood ; it contains much curious and useful informa- 
tion, and it is particularly valuable on those points in which the 
mind is affected by the body. The author's medical experience and, 
knowledge gave him special facilities for treating intelligently this 
class of subjects. A truly Christian spirit pervades all his writings. 

Dymond. 

Jonathan Dymond, 1796-1828, a member of the Society of Friends, 
wrote two works of great value : Inquiry into the Accordancy of War 
with the Principles of Christianity; Essays on the Principles of 
Morality, and on the Private and Political Eights and Obligations of 
Mankind. * The former was one of the most effective weapons of the 
Peace Society, The latter has been republished in the United States, 
and has been made a text-book on Moral Science in many institutions 
of learning. 

Jeremy Bentham. 

Jeremy Bentham, 1747-1832, attained great celebrity as a writer 
on political reform. Most of the ameliorations in English law have 
sprung from the discussions to which Bentham gave rise. He was 
indeed a. bold, vigorous, and original thinker, but not a safe guide; 
and in ,his religious opinions was decidedly of an infidel character. 
The cardinal doctrines of his whole system were, that " utility is the 



156 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

test and measure of virtue;" and that "the object of legislation is the 
greatest happiness of the greatest number." 

Malthus. 

Thomas Eobert Malthus, 1766-1834, was the author of a large 
number of works on Political Economy. His best known work was 
an Essay on the Principle of Population. It excited great attention 
when it first appeared ; and the principles which it lays down have 
not ceased to engage the attention of philosophers ever since. He 
controverts the theory of Godwin and others upon the progress and 
perfectibility of human nature, and endeavors to establish, as a funda- 
mental principle, that population tends to increase in geometrical 
ratio, while the supply of food and other necessaries can be increased 
only in arithmetical. The corollary is, of course, that at some future 
day the supply of food will not suffice the population. This theory 
has lately received fresh impulse by its relation to the so-called strug- 
gle for existence underlying Darwin's Origin of Species. 

Rieardo. 

David Kicardo, 1772-1823, is another prominent writer on Politi- 
cal Economy. Kicardo' s Principles of Political Economy and Tax- 
ation belongs to the same class with Adam Smith's Wealth of Na- 
tions, Malthus on Population, and Mill's Principles, leading works 
on the subject. Several of the principles laid down by Eicardo have 
been controverted or shown to be erroneous, but the work still retains 
its value as an able treatise. 

V. RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. 

Seott the Commentator. 

Thomas Scott, D. D., 1747-1821, was the author of a Commentary 
on the Bible which has been more read than any other like work in 
the English language. His first work was the Force of Truth, in 
which he describes his own religious experience. During the course 
of his long ministry, he wrote many other books and pamphlets on 
religious and theological subjects. But the main work of his life was 
the preparation of his Commentary on the Bible, which first appeared 
in 1792. It was usu'ally printed in 6 vols., 4to. This great work was 
entirely his own composition, and was characterized by a sound sense 
and a general sobriety of judgment and clearness of statement which 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 157 

made it an almost universal favorite. No Commentary on the Scrip- 
tures probably has ever been read half so much as Scott's. It is 
wanting in critical scholarship, and it skips the hard places, but it 
gives a clear, bold outline of the general scope of each passage. It is 
now practically superseded by works of a more critical character. 

Robert Hall. 

Eobert Hall, 1764-1831, was, by unanimous consent, the greatest 
pulpit orator of his day, excepting possibly Dr. Chalmers. 

The accounts given of the eflfects of Robert Hall's preaching partake 
of the marvellous. " From the commencement of his discourse an 
almost breathless silence prevailed, deeply impressive and solemniz- 
ing from its singular intenseness. Not a sound was heard but that of 
the preacher's voice — scarcely "an eye but was fixed upon him — not 
a countenance that he did not watch and read, and interpret as he sur- 
veyed them again and again with his rapid, ever-excursive glance. 
As he advanced and increased in animation, five or six of his auditors 
would be seen to rise and lean forward over the front of their pews, 
still keeping their eyes upon him. Some new or striking sentiment 
or expression would, in a few minutes, cause others to rise in like 
manner : shortly afterwards still more, and so on, until, long before 
the close of the sermon, it often happened that a considerable portion 
of the congregation were seen standing, — every eye directed to the 
preacher, yet now and then for a moment glancing from one to the 
other, thus transmitting and reciprocating thought and feeling : Mr. 
Hall himself, though manifestly absorbed in his subject, conscious of 
the whole, received new animation from what he thus witnessed, re- 
flecting it back upon those who were already alive to the inspiration, 
until all who were susceptible of thought and emotion seemed wound 
up to the utmost limit of elevation on earth, -^ when he would close, 
and they reluctantly resumed their seats." — Olinihus Gregory. 

Dr. Hall was strongly moved by public affairs, and on several occa- 
sions he wrote and preached on the exciting topics of the day. The 
course of the French Revolution called forth several controversial 
essays from his pen, and his sermon on the death of the Princess Char- 
lotte attracted universal attention by its commanding eloquence. 

Legh Riehinond. 

Legh Richmond, 1772-1827, a clergyman of the Church of England, 
of the evangelical school, acquired great celebrity by the publication 
of three narrative tracts, the Dairvman's Daughter, the Negro Ser- 
14 



158 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



vant, and the Young Cottager, which have had an imnaense circula- 
tion. Of the Dairyman's Daughter alone, four million copies, in 
nineteen languages, had been sold as long ago as 1849. 

VI. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. 



Mrs. Barbauld. 

Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld, 1743-1825, though not gifted with 
genius of so high an order as Jeanna Baillie, was yet a woman of 
noble mould, who deserves well of her kind both for what she did and 
for what she was. Her writings, which are numerous, are partly edu- 
cational and partly belong to what is called polite literature. Mrs. Bar- 
bauld was the daughter of the Rev. John Aikin, and the sister of Dr. 
John Aikin. Her father, who was a dissenting minister, and who kept 
a seminary for the education of boys, gave her the same lessons with 
his other pupils, and thus she was thoroughly instructed in the Greek 
and Latin classics. She was married to the Rev. Rochemant Barbauld, 
a Dissenting minister of French descent. She and her husband opened 
a boarding-school for boys, the success of which was due mainly to her 
exertions. Several young boys were taken under her entire charge. 
Among these lads were two who afterwards became distinguished. Sir 
William Gell and Lord Chief-Justice Denman. 

it was for these young pupils that Mrs. Barbauld composed her two 
best works, Early Lessons for Children, and Hymns in Prose. Among 
her other works, she edited the British Novelists, in 50 vols. 

Mrs. Barbauld lived to the age of eighty- two, and her closing years, 
like those of many other women eminent in literature, were peaceful 
and serene. 

The lines given below were written by Mrs. Barbauld in her ex- 
treme old age. They have a curious history. Crabb Robinson says 
that on one occasion he repeated the lines to Wordsworth, while on a 
visit to the poet. Wordsworth, who was walking up and down in his 
sitting-room, asked to have them repeated again and again, until he 
had learned them by heart. Then, pausing in his walk, and mutter- 
ing to himself, he said, " I am not in the habit of grudging people 
their good things, but I wish I had written those lines." 

" Life ! I know not what thou art, 
But know that thou and I must part ; 
And when, or how, or where we met, 
I own to me 's a secret yet. 
Life ! we 've been long together. 
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 



SCOTT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 159 

'Tis hard to part when friends are dear — 

Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ; 

Then, steal away, give little warning, 

Choose thine own time ; 

Say not Good-Night, — but in some brighter clime 

Bid me Good-Morning." 

Dr. Aikin. 

John Aikin, M.D., 1747-1822, an industrious and useful writer, 
was for fifty years prominently before the public as an author and a 
compiler, but without achieving any lasting renown. In conjunction 
with his sister, Mrs. Barbauldj he wrote Evenings at Home, a series 
of essays and tales for children. The work was completed in 1795, in 
6 vols., and was very popular. It was translated into almost every 
language of Europe, and led the way to numerous works of a similar 
nature by other hands. It was the pioneer to an important species of 
literature which in our day has received a prodigious development. 
His latest publication was an edition of the Select Works of the British 
Poets, with copious notes, biographical and critical. The work is 
fajniliarly known as Aikin' s British Poets, and has enjoyed an exten- 
sive popularity. 

Charles Lamb. 

Charles Lamb, 1775-1834, excelled all the men of his day in the 
style of writing which he chiefly cultivated. The Essays of Elia, by 
which he is best known, are marked by a certain delicate and quiet 
humor, which will always insure him a chosen band of devoted ad- 
mirers. 

Roseoe. 

William Eoscoe, 1753-1831, is well known as a writer on Italian 
history and literature. He was a banker of Liverpool, and a member 
of Parliament. His chief works were his Life of Lorenzo de Medici, 
and his Life of Leo X. They were for a long time the standard works 
on the subject of which they treat. The style is in the main pleasing, 
and the author's knowledge is extensive. Unfortunately, however, he 
was not critical or accurate in his use of authorities, and he has even 
consciously veiled some of the worst features of that age in Italy. For 
much of the ground which he covers he has been superseded by latei' 
writers, especially by Trollope in his History of the Florentine Ee- 
public. 



160 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



Mitford. 

William Mitford, 1744-1827, is honorably connected with, literature 
by his elaborate work on the History of Greece. This extends from 
the beginning of Greek history down to the death of Philip. It was 
the standard history, until superseded by the works of Thirlwall and 
Grote, and even now possesses great value. Its chief defect is that it 
is conceived in a partisan, not a judicial spirit. Mitford writes, 
throughout, with the animus of a Tory, and carries back to the days 
of Greece his antipathies to democracy and republics. He sees the 
events of Athenian political life through Tory spectacles, as it were, 
and hence can see but little good in Demosthenes, and no evil in 
Philip. 

Gillies. 

John Gillies, LL. D., 1747-1836, is likewise extensively known as 
an historian of Greece. Gillies' s Greece and Mitford' s were at one 
time the rival candidates for public favor> though both liave now been 
superseded. 





CHAPTER XIII. 

Wordsworth and his Contemporaries. 

(IS30-I8S0.) 

The present chapter embraces the time from 1830 to 1850. It in- 
cludes the long period of tranquillity that ensued after the accession 
of Louis Philippe to the throne of France. It was a time of general 
peace and thrift throughout the world. 

The writers of this period may be divided into six sections : 1. The 
Poets, beginning with Wordsworth ; 2. Writers of Novels and Tales, 
beginning with Miss Mitford ; 3. Writers on Literature, Politics, and 
Science, beginning with Sydney Smith; 4. Writers on Religion and 
Theology, beginning with Chalmers ; 5. Writers on History, Biogra- 
phy, Antiquities, and Travel, beginning with Lingard; 6. Miscella- 
neous Writers, beginning with Arnold of Rugby. 

I. THE POETS. 
Wordsworth. 

William Wordsworth, 1770-1850, had been contemporary with 
Coleridge and Southey and the other illustrious writers mentioned in 
the preceding chapter, and had risen to fame with them. But he con- 
tinued steadily to rise after those stars had set, and during all the lat- 
ter part of his course he reigned supreme in the poetical firmament, in 
solitary and unapproachable splendor. From 1840 to 1850 he was by 
general consent the first of living poets in England. 

Wordsworth studied at Cambridge, where he took his degree of B. 
A. in 1791. Before graduation, however, he had visited France, then 
in the throes of the great Revolution, and had become intimately ac- 
14* L 161 



162 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

quainted with some of the Girondists. The impression made upon 
the young poet by the scenes and characters of the Revolution was 
never to be effaced. He became for the time an ardent republican, so 
much so that he could not even sympathize with his country in her 
war upon France. In time came the reaction, brought about by the 
crimes and anarchy of the Revolution itself, and Wordsworth turned 
back in righteous horror. From this time onward, the poet's life 
became one of tranquil meditation and composition. 

His first publication of any note was one made jointly by him and 
Coleridge. This was the famous Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798. 
The understanding was that Coleridge should "take up the super- 
natural and romantic," while Wordsworth undertook to "give the 
charm of novelty to the things of every day, and to excite a feeling 
analogous to the supernatural by awakening the mind's attention to 
the lethargy of custom, and by directing to the loveliness and the 
wonders of the world around us." Accordingly, Coleridge produced 
the Ancient Mariner, and Wordsworth a number of short pieces, among 
them some of his very best, such as an Anecdote for Fathers, We are 
Seven, Lines written in Early Spring, Tintern Abbey. Others again, 
like the Idiot Boy, are unquestionably weak. Not only did the vol- 
ume meet with no favor ; it was condemned in unmeasured terms by 
critics of high and low degree. Coleridge came off more lightly, but 
Wordsworth's share of the venture was denounced as the veriest 
"trash" and "twaddle." 

But Wordsworth was a law unto himself. Apparently unruffled by 
severity and ridicule, he moved on in his self-appointed way. His 
circumstances grew easier hj the payment of a long-standing debt 
owed to his father's estate. He married, in 1802, his cousin, Mary 
Hutchinson, by whom he liad five children. After living for some 
years at Grasmere, and then at Allan Bank, he settled permanently, 
in 1813, at Eydal Mount, in Cumberland; and there calmly awaited 
the slow-coming verdict of the public. 

The records of literature present scarcely another such instance of 
a poet's growing into supreme favor and repute in despite of deter- 
mined opposition. At first Wordsworth had only the admiration of 
a few appreciative friends — Coleridge, Be Quincey, Southey — and 
the almost adoration of his wife and sister. But slowly, year after 
year, prejudice was disarmed, ridicule was silenced, the circle of ad- 
mirers grew larger, the popular understanding of the poet's genius 
was quickened. At his death, Wordsworth was not only the official 
poet-laureate, but the acknowledged monarch of English letters. 

Wordsworth himself contributed nothing beyond his works towards 



WORDSWOETH AND CONTEMPOE ARIES. 163 

bringing about this wonderful revolution in popular opinion. No poet 
probably ever went less out of his way to seek favor or notice, cared 
less for the thoughts and opinions of contemporaries, read less either 
for information or pleasure. What he gave to the world was elicited 
by close communion with nature in her myriad shapes and hues, or 
evolved little by little from the slow-working loom of his own imagi- 
nation and meditation. 

His principal works are Lyrical Ballads ; The Excursion ; The 
White Doe of Eylstone ; Peter Bell ; The River Duddon ; Yarrow 
Revisited; and Sonnets. 

Wordsworth is pre-eminently the poet of the reflective imagination. 
He has not the passion of Byron or of Tennyson, or the myriad mind 
of Shakespeare. He has not the vigor of Milton, but he stands next 
to Milton in purity, sweetness, gravity of thought and style, and broad 
humanity. His demerit — the one that aroused at first such a storm 
of hostile criticism — is that he often takes the fatal step from the 
sublime, or at least from the imaginative, to the ridiculous. He seems 
at times to be wanting in the sense of the incongruous, and he is always 
wanting in true passion. While able to depict passionate characters, 
he fails to detect the subtle connection between motive and action, 
character and life. With all his defects, however, he is a great poet. 
He has ennobled the poetic style, and given to it philosophic depth : 
he has awakened a love for the lowly both in nature and in man ; he 
has given a healthier tone to popular sentiment. No two men ever 
differed more widely in personal character than Wordsworth and 
Dickens, — the one serene, contemplative ; the other bustling, eager, 
ostentatious. Yet the poet's exaltation of the lowly prepared the 
public for the folk-sketches of the great novelist. 



Keble. 

John Keble, 1792-1866, gained his chief distinction as a writer of 
sacred lyrics, though honored also for his theological writings, and 
held in the highest reverence for the singular sweetness of his disposi- 
tion and the purity of his life. 

Keble was educated at Oxford, and was for a time Professor of 
Poetry there, but spent most of his life in a country parish. His name 
is intimately associated with that of Newman and Pusey in the so- 
called Tractarian movement, which caused such excitement in England 
thirty or forty years ago. According to Newman's statement, Keble 
was the originator and master-mind of the movement. 



164 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. ' 

His best known works are : The Christian Year, or Thoughts in 
Verse for the Sundays and Holidays througliout the year ; Lyra Inno- 
centium, or Thoughts in Verse on Children, and his contributions to 
Tracts for the Times. 

Keble appears to have been a man of uncommon talents, and of the 
most winning disposition. While at Oxford, he was the idol of the 
University, His subsequent life was mainly one of retirement and 
parochial duty. His Christian Year is the most valuable contribution 
to religious poetry made in the present century, and has been received 
as a household treasure in families of every creed. 

Croly. 

George Croly, LL.D., 1780-1860, was a clergyman of the Church of 
England, and had a parish in London, where he attained celebrity as 
a preacher. His writings are very numerous, and hold a high rank. 
He succeeded about equally as a poet, as a writer of fiction, as an his- 
torian, as a literary editor, and as a religious polemic. In the long list 
of his works, there is scarcely one that at the time of its publication 
did not make its mark. His Catiline, in poetry, his Salathiel, in fic- 
tion, his George IV. and Edmund Burke, in history, fall but little short 
of being of the first class in their several kinds. 

Ebenezer Elliott. 

Ebenezer Elliott, 1781-1849, is familiarly known as "The Corn-Law 
Ehymer." Elliott Avas obliged in his youth to work at the forge in an 
iron foundry in Yorkshire, and had few advantages of education. But 
an inward prompting led him to the cultivation of letters by means of 
private study, and in his case, as in that of several others in like cir- 
cumstances, the inspiration to verse first came from reading Thomson's 
Seasons. 

His first ventures with the public were unsuccessful, being on topics 
similar to those which he had admired in Thomson. But Elliott was 
out of his element in subjects like these. Neither his education nor 
his rugged nature fitted him for gentle themes. The agitation for the 
repeal of the corn laws, and the light thrown upon the appalling hard- 
ships of the operatives, enlisted, however, his warmest sympathies, and 
furnished him with topics which called out all the resources of his 
strong and fiery nature. His Corn-Law Rhymes had the ring of the 
anvil. They received almost immediate recognition, and gave the 
author an established position as the Poet of the People. 



WORDSWORTH AND CONTEMPORARIES. 165 

Barham. 

Eev. Eichard Harris Barham, 1788-1845, a humorous writer, is bet- 
ter known by his assumed name of Thomas Ingoldsby. His chief 
work, the Ingoldsby Legends, a series of tales in verse and prose, ap- 
peared first in Bentley's Miscellany, and was received with general 
favor. None of these Legends probably had a wider circulation than 
the thoroughly laughable story of the famous Lord Tomnoddy. Mr. 
Barham was a friend of Sydney Smith, Theodore Hook, and other wits 
of the day. 

Hood. 

Thomas Hood, 1798-1845, was the prince of comic humorists, the 
most audacious and successful of punsters. Hood was son of a London 
publisher, and entered a counting-house to learn the mercantile busi- 
ness, but left it for the engraver's tool, and that in turn for the life of a 
man of letters. He became sub-editor of the London Magazine, and 
editor of the New Monthly, besides being a regular contributor to 
Punch. 

His most successful humorous publications were Miss Killmansegg 
and Her Wooden Leg, Whims and Oddities, the Comic Annual, and 
Hood's Comic Album. The three most famous of his serious poems 
are the Dream of Eugene Aram, the Song of the Shirt, and the 
Bridge of Sighs. The two latter, apart from their beauty of sentiment, 
are probably unsurpassed in English verse in the wonderfully delicate 
interlacing of their rhymes. 

No English writer has equalled Hood in the audacity with which 
he plays upon words. Still, even in his most fantastic pieces, there 
is always a deep undercurrent of genuine pathos. 

Hook. 

Theodore Edward Hook, 1788-1841, another humorist and wit of 
this period, was second only to Hood. Hook wrote, in all, thirty-eight 
works and pieces, besides editing the John Bull and the New 
Monthly, and contributing to other periodicals. " Many and multi- 
farious, however, as are his volumes, he has left behind him no great 
creation, nothing that can be pointed to as a triumphant index of the 
extraordinary powers which he undoubtedly possessed." — !). M. 3Ioir, 



166 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

James Montgomery. 

James Montgomery, 1771-1854, holds a high rank among the poets 
of England. His devotional poetry especially has made a deep im- 
pression on the national heart, hardly inferior to that produced by the 
poetry of Cowper. He was for more than thirty years editor of the 
Sheffield Iris, a liberal journal. The last twenty years of his life were 
passed in retirement. 

Montgomery is one among the instances in which Jeffrey made 
shipwreck in attempting to criticise poetical productions. The slash- 
ing reviewer broke the staff over Montgomery's Wanderer in Switzer- 
land, but all in vain. Despite the maledictions and prognostications 
of the Edinburgh, Montgomery's poems gained steadily in favor, until 
the poet obtained his just rank by the side of Campbell, Eogers, and 
Sou they. 

Of his larger works the most important are the following: The 
Wanderer in Switzerland ; The West Indies, a poem against the slave- 
trade ; The World before the Flood. Besides these, he wrote a large 
number of short devotional pieces that have been adopted into the 
hymnals of all Christian denominations. Many lines and passages, 
such as " There is a land, of every land the pride," have passed into 
the common stock of the language. 

Robert Montgomery. 

Eobert Montgomery, 1807-1856, is the author of a large number of 
works, chiefly poetical, on religious subjects. He enjoyed great tem- 
porary popularity as a poet, but is at present little read. His princi- 
pal works, the Omnipresence of the Deity, and Satan, or Intellect 
without God, were the subjects of a scathing notice by Macaulay in the 
Edinburgh Eeview. 

Bernard Barton. 

Bernard Barton, 1784-1849, is commonly known as "The Quaker 
Poet." He became a banker's clerk at the age of twenty-six, and 
continued in that position to the end of his life. He published no one 
extended poem, but a large number of detached pieces, mostly of a 
meditative character. 

Thomas Haynes Bayly. 

Thomas Haynes Bayly, 1797-1839, is widely known as a prolific 
writer of novels, tales, plays, and songs. He produced thirty-six 
pieces for the stage, and his songs are numbered by the hundred. 



WORDSWORTH AND CONTEMPORARIES. 167 

II. ^TVRITERS OF NOVELS AND TALES. 

Miss Mitford. 

Mary Eussell Mitford, 1786-1855, is among the best writers of tales 
descriptive of English country life and character. She evinced early 
in life a fondness for letters. Poetry was her favorite, but she was 
forced to turn aside to the every-day but more lucrative path of prose. 

Her first important publication was Our Village, a series of delight- 
ful sketches of English rural life. It met with a very warm reception, 
and established the author's reputation. This was followed by Ameri- 
can Tales ; American Tales for Children ; Belford Eegis, or Sketches 
of a Country Town ; Country Stories ; and Atherton, a tale of Country 
Life. Upon the whole, Miss Mitford succeeds best as a describer of 
English country life and character. Her sketches are drawn from 
nature itself, and have an air of the most charming reality. No books 
of the kind are more thoroughly enjoyable by old and young. They 
have outlived nearly all the fashionable novels, their great contempo- 
raries, and entered into the permanent treasure-house of English lit- 
erature. 

Mrs. Opie. 

Amelia Opie, 1769-1853, is widely known — almost as widely as 
Miss Edgeworth — for her popular Tales. She was the wife of the 
distinguished painter, James Opie. Her principal works are Father 
and Daughter, Adeline Mowbray, and Madeline. She wrote also a 
collection of shorter pieces, and a series of stories to illustrate the evil 
consequences of lying. 

Mrs. Opie's fame as a novelist has diminished considerably of late 
years. In no sense can she be considered a creator of character. Her 
personages are not marked, the plot of the story is weak, and the 
moral purpose throughout is too palpable. Her strength lies in her 
power to dissect morbid conditions and passions of the human heart. 

Lady Morgan. 

Lady Sydney Morgan, 1789-1859, was in her day one of the leading 
celebrities of the literary world. She was chiefly known by her novels 
and her works of travel. The most popular of her novels is the Wil(f 
Irish Girl. Woman, or Ida of Athens, is noted as having furnished 
the occasion for one of Gifford's most ferocious reviews in the London 
Quarterly. Her two most celebrated works of travel are entitled re- 
spectively France and Italy. They are still interesting, and were read 



168 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

with avidity at the time of their appearance, although Gifford kept up 
his fulminations against the authoress. Lady Morgan's style is 
sprightly, and her descriptions successful, but she was wholly incom- 
petent to deal with the graver problems of life, such as she has touched 
upon in Woman. 

Captain Marryat. 

Frederick Marryat, 1792-1848, captain in the Eoyal Navy, and 
an able officer as well as writer, is universally considered the best 
English delineator of naval life and adventure. His principal works 
are The Pacha of Many Tales ; Midshipman Easy ; Japhet in Search 
of a Father ; Peter Simple ; Jacob Faithful. 

Besides his strictly nautical novels, Captain Marryat wrote several 
novels and sketches descriptive of American life in the West. During 
the latter part of his life Marryat published a number of stories for 
the young, such as Masterman Ready. As a writer upon American 
manners, he attained but moderate success. It is only when he 
moves among scenes and persons thoroughly English that he displays 
his powers to the best advantage. His descriptions of incident and 
character are easy and vigorous, and extremely droll. The best of 
his works is Midshipman Easy. 

George Borrow. 

George Borrow, 1803 , is a popular English writer and adven- 
turer. He had a natural turn for acquiring by the ear a knowledge 
of living languages, and had in this way acquired, among other lan- 
guages, a knowledge of that spoken by the Gypsies, and with it a 
great deal of curious information in regard to that singular people. 
He seems to have been a sort of Gypsy himself, so far as an irrepres- 
sible love of wandering and adventure is concerned; and he was 
employed, with wonderful success, in circulating the Bible in Spain 
at a time when no other agency seemed capable of doing the work. 
His works, partly fictitious, and partly autobiographical, giving an 
account of his labors in Bible distribution and of his adventures 
among the Gypsies, are exceedingly entertaining, and have been 
very popular. The titles of his principal works are : The Bible in 
Spain ; Zincali, an Account of the Gypsies in Spain ; Lavengro, the 
Scholar, the Gypsy, and the Priest. 

Charlotte Bronte and her Sisters. 

Three sisters, daughters of Rev. Patrick Bronte, rose suddenly to 
fame about the middle of the present century : Charlotte, 18 1G- 
15 



WORDSWORTH AXD CO^^'TEMPOR ARIES . 169 

1855, known as " Currer Bell ; " "Axxe, 1820-1S49, known as '•' Acton 
Bell;" and Emii.y, 1819-1848, known as "Ellis BeU." 

The first publication of the sisters was a joint affair, Poems bv Cur- 
rer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Emily, besides her share in the volume 
just named, wrote Wuthering Heights, a novel of considerable, but 
very unequal power. Anne wrote also Agnes Grev, and The Tenant 
of Wildfeld Hall. None of these works, probably, would have at- 
tracted much attention, but for their association with those of the 
older sister. 

Charlotte's first separate publication was Jane Eyre, an Autobiog- 
raphy. It was a work of wonderful power, and it gained immediate 
and universal popularity. It was followed by Shirley, not quite 
equal to the preceding, but still very able and very popular. Vil- 
lette, her last and greatest work, was received with a universal burst 
of admiration. In it she not only rose to the level of Jane Eyre, 
but even went above it. The biography of Charlotte Bronte by Mrs. 
Gaskell is itself a book of intense interest. 

III. V^'RITERS ON LITERATURE, POLITICS, AND 

SCIENCE. 

Sydney Smith. 

Sydney Smith, 1771-1845, the witty Canon of St, Paul's, was on the 
whole tlie ablest and most effective of that small band of writers who 
in the early part of this century made the Edinburgh Keview a power 
in the world. 

Smith studied at Winchester and at Oxford, took orders in the 
Church of England, and became finally Canon of St. PauPs. He was 
one of the founders of the Edinburgh Peview, and he wrote for that 
periodical many of its most brilliant articles on politics, literature, 
and philosophy. His most celebrated series of writings was Let- 
ters on the Subject of the Catholics, to my Brother Abraham who 
lives in the Country. These Letters, appearing during the times of 
agitation which preceded the passage of the Catholic Emancipation 
Bill, exhibited the author's full powers of wit, sarcasm, and solid rea- 
soning, and summed up the case for Emancipation so ably as to leave 
nothing to be said on the other side. His Memoirs, published by his 
daughter, Lady Holland, is a most interesting' biography, reveaUng 
to us both the public and the domestic life of one of the shrewdest 
and most admirable of winters, husbands, and fathers. A collection of 
his sayings has been made, under the title of Wit and Wisdom of 
Sydney Smith. 
'' *15 



170 



ENGLISH LITEEATUEE, 



|ji 



Smith's wit was of tlie highest order, the wit which results from a 
keen, intuitive perception of right and wrong, not degenerating into 
bitterness and rancor, but poised by strong good sense and healthy 
self-activity. He differs from Lamb in having less humor, and a less 
delicate play of fancy. Lamb's whimsicalities are those of a recluse 
who lives to himself and his books, and loiters through the world 
with half-closed eyes ; Smith walks briskly through the great Vanity 
Fair with eyes wide open and a jest at his tongue's end for every 
folly. Many of Smith's sayings and repartees have become pro- 
verbial, such as the one in which he characterizes Macaulay's con- 
versation as enlivened by brilliant flashes of silence. 



Jeffrey. 

Francis, Lord Jeffrey, 1773-1850, made for himself a world-wide 
celebrity as a leading writer for the Edinburgh Eeview, of which also, 
for more than a fourth of a century, he was the fearless and unequalled 
editor. 

Jeffrey, while a young man in Edinburgh, became intimate with 
Brougham and Sydney Smith, and the result of this intimacy was the 
establishment of the celebrated Review. After the publication of the 
first three numbers, the editorship was transferred from Smith to Jeffrey, 
who retained it from 1803 to 1829. Jeffrey's contributions number in 
all two hundred. A selection, seventy-nine in number, has been pub- 
lished, in 4 vols., 8vo ; the remaining articles still lie scattered through- 
out the numbers of the Review. 

Jeffrey occupies undoubtedly the most prominent position among 
modern English reviewers. This prominence is due, however, fully as 
much to his success in editorship as to his own merits as a critic. 
Under his management the Edinburgh Review became a great lit- 
erary and political power in the realm. Men of every rank and pro- 
fession read and admired, dreaded or hated, its slashing tone and its 
recklessness of fear or favor. Much, very much, of the political pro- 
gress of England during the present century is due to the stimulus 
applied unsparingly to the body politic by the writers for this Review. 



Brougham. 

Henry, Lord Brougham, 1778-1868, was one of the great lights of 
the nineteenth century. He was an advocate, a jurist, a statesman, a 
political reformer, and a man of letters, and in each of these walks of 
mental activity stood among the foremost. 

As a lawyer, Brougham soon rose to distinction ; and being employed 



WORDSWORTH AND CONTEMPORARIES. 171 

as counsel for the defence of Queen Caroline, he had an occasion for 
the display of his talents such as has rarely happened. He was for 
many years a member of the House of Commons, where he had no 
superior in debate, and no equal except perhaps Canning. He was at 
length elevated to the Peerage and made Lord Chancellor. As Chan- 
cellor, he displayed amazing activity, and on retiring from the office 
he left not a single case in arrear of judgment, — a fact without prece- 
dent in the history of that court. He was through life an earnest ad- 
vocate of popular education, cheap publications, and of political and 
social reform. 

Of all his labors, none produced a more immediate and widespread 
influence than those connected with the Edinburgh Review. To this 
celebrated journal, begun in 1802, Brougham continued for twenty -five 
years to be a regular contributor. The Eeview exerted a powerful in- 
fluence wherever the English language was spoken, and on almost 
every topic of public interest; and Brougham, Smith, and Jeffrey 
were for many years the great triumvirs who wielded, without dispute, 
the mighty sceptre. 

A complete edition of Brougham's works was published under his 
own supervision, in 1857, in 10 vols., 8vo. Since his death, his auto- 
biography, written when he was almost ninety, has made its appearance ; 
Life and Times of Lord Brougham, written by himself, 3 vols. 

"Wilson. 

John Wilson, 1785-1854, better known as Christopher North, did 
for Blackwood's Magazine what Brougham, Jeffrey, and Smith did for 
the Edinburgh Review. He was equally, though somewhat later, and 
in a different way, a potentate in the world of opinion. 

Blackwood's Magazine began in 1817, with Wilson and Lockhart as 
its chief contributors. Lockhart going soon after to London, Wilson 
became thenceforth sole editor as well as chief writer. In 1820, he was 
elected Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, 
his competitor being Sir William Hamilton, then but little known. 
Wilson succeeded in sustaining both his editorship and his professor- 
ship with great distinction. His genius shone brightest when writing 
those genial, hap-hazard, yet eminently suggestive sketches, criticisms, 
and fragments that filled page after page of Blackwood, and kept the 
reader laughing or frowning, but always awake. There was a spon- 
taneity, a freshness, about North's utterances, a freedom from conven- 
tionality, that surprised and delighted. The popular heart has always 
associated him with Burns and Scott, as one of a great literary trio. 



172 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

To the Scotch mind, the massive form, shaggy brows, rollicking 
manner, shrewd bonhomie, independent speech of the great Kit North, 
are typical of national character. He is a man whom his countrymen 
thoroughly understand, and with whom they can sympathize. 

The most famous of his magazine pieces was a series known as the 
Noctes Ambrosianse. Of his publications outside the magazine the 
one best known was Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life. 

De Quineey. 

Thomas De Quineey, 1785-1859, is familiarly known as the English 
Opium Eater. Although in the main he made shipwreck of his won- 
derful powers, he yet achieved much that was great and noble. He 
is by common consent one of the greatest masters of English prose. 

After leaving the University, when about the age of twenty-four, he 
became intimate with Coleridge, -Wordsworth, and Southey, and took 
up his abode among them at Grasmere, in the beautiful Lake region 
made famous by the residence of these great writers. He remained in 
that place about twenty years, devoting his time to literary pursuits, 
and publishing his writings through the magazines, — Blackwood, Tait, 
and others. On leaving Grasmere, he went to Glasgow, and thence to 
Edinburgh, in which latter city he spent the last years of his life. 

After indulging in the excessive use of opium for many years, De 
Quineey, by a desperate and long-continued effort, succeeded in over- 
coming the habit, though he never recovered entirely from the terri- 
ble effects. This was in 1820, when he was thirty-five years of age. 
In the following year he made a great sensation by the publication of 
the Confessions of an English Opium Eater, giving an account of his 
previous life and of his experience under the influence of the dreadful 
drug. 

De Quineey was a man of extraordinary powers, and had they been 
under proper regulation, he might have achieved works which would 
have placed him among the great men of all time. As it is, his works 
are all of the nature of fragments, great and splendid, beyond the reach 
of any man of his time to equal, yet, after all, fragments. 

Of the excellence of his style, as a writer of prose, it is difficult to 
speak too highly. Not a few critics of great authority place him, in 
that respect, at the head of all English prose writers, while others 
divide the honor between him and Euskin. He wrote on a great 
variety of subjects, historical, literary, speculative, imaginative; and 
on every subject that he undertook he left the evidences of great and 
original genius. 



WORDSWOETH AND CONTEMPOR AEIES . 173 

Loekhart. 

John Gibson Loekhart, 1794-1854, occupies a large and honorable 
place in the literary history of his times. 

He was one of the early contributors to Blackwood's Magazine, 
and from 1826 to 1853 was editor of the London Quarterly Keview. 
In his position as editor, he placed the Quarterly in the very first 
rank of periodicals. His greatest separate work is his Memoirs of 
Sir "Walter Scott, which, as a biography, ranks next to Boswell's Life 
of Johnson. 

Loekhart was a native of Scotland. He was educated at Glasgow 
and Oxford, and married the eldest daughter of Sir Walter Scott. 

Landor. 

Walter Savage Landor, 1775-1864, is one of the connecting links 
between the age of Walter Scott, Byron, and Southey, and that of 
Tennyson and Dickens. He began writing while still a boy, and he 
did not cease entirely until extreme old age, though he lived to be 
almost ninety. He was remarkable for the accuracy of his scholar- 
ship in Latin and Greek, and for his knowledge of history, and espe- 
cially of the history of Greece and Some. The men and the affairs of 
former ages seemed to be as familiar to his mind, in all the minutiae of 
their every-day and private life, as are those of our own personal ac- 
quaintance. This thoroughness of historical knowledge, joined to a 
vigorous imagination, enabled him to execute in so wonderful a 
manner those Imaginary Conversations, which form the enduring 
basis of his fame. 

In these Conversations, after the manner of Plato and Cicero, he 
introduces well-known historical characters, as discussing various 
questions of public and private interest. The range of subjects dis- 
cussed in these dialogues is almost encyclopsedie in character, and the 
proprieties of time and person are so nicely observed that the reader 
almost unconsciously becomes acquainted with the men as well as with 
the subjects. In this class of his works are to be included Imaginary 
Conversations of Greeks and Romans; Imaginary Conversations of 
Literary Men and Statesmen ; Pericles and Aspasia ; and Citation and 
Examination of Shakespeare for Deer-Stealing. 

Mr. Landor was a man of wealth, extremely fastidious in his tastes, 
proud even to arrogance, careless, almost contemptuous, of public 
opinion, and not condescending to conceal the good opinion he had 
of himself He was of course unpopular, and was subjected to savage 
criticism. Yet, as years rolled on, his eminent merits gradually ob- 
15* 



III! 



174 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

tained recognition ; and, unlike many of his contemporaries, his Star 
now stands confessedly higher in the firmament than it did fifty years 
ago. His writings are very unequal, and some of them doubtless de- 
serve the condemnation which they received. But others are truly 
classical, and may claim to stand beside the famous works of antiquity 
which they most resemble in form and structure. 

John Foster. 

John Foster, 1770-1843, was the son of a weaver, and was himself 
apprenticed to a trade ; but discovering aptitudes for higher occupa- 
tions, he was allowed to study for the ministry, and entered the Bap- 
tist College at Bristol. Being obliged by a glandulous affection of the 
neck to stop preaching, he gave himself up to literary work, writing 
chiefly for the Eclectic Keview. His contributions to this Review 
rank with those of Macaulay, Jefii'ey, and Mackintosh in the Edin- 
burgh, for vigor, originality, depth, and finish. He wrote also a series 
of Essays, which are known wherever the English language is spoken. 

Hallam. 

Henry Hallam, LL. D., 1778-1859, was one of the most distin- 
guished historical writers of the century. 

His chief writings are : A View of Europe during the Middle Ages ; 
Constitutional History of England ; Literature of Europe in 15-17th 
centuries. Hallam was a valued friend of Sir Walter Scott, and one 
of the early contributors to the Edinburgh Review. 

Hugh Miller. 

Hugh Miller, 1802-1856, a native of Scotland, was a man of the 
most marked character and talents. In early life he was employed as 
a day-laborer in a stone-quarry, where he not only worked out sand- 
stone for his eniployers, but the geology of the old sandstone for him- 
self, and laid the deep and broad foundations for his subsequent fame. 
His principal contributions, in book-form, to science are: The Old 
Ked Sandstone ; Footprints of the Creator ; Testimony of the Eocks. 
His style is a model of clearness and vigor, and of adaptation to the 
mind of the non-professional reader. No one has done more to render 
the science of geology popular in a legitimate way. The Testimony 
of the ilocks is a masterly attempt to reconcile Geology with Genesis, 
or rather to show that the science of the earth's formation is no more 
antagonistic to Eevelation than is astronomy, that the two are co-ordi- 
nate and not antagonistic. 



WORDSWOETH AND CONTEMPOR AEIES . 175 



IV. WRITERS ON RELIGIOlSr AND THEOLOGY. 

Ctialmers. 

Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D., 1780-1847, was the most eminent 
Scotch divine of his day, and one of the great men of all time. 

Chalmers first became celebrated as a preacher in the Tron Church, 
Glasgow, where his pulpit discourses attracted great attention. His 
abilities as a writer of the first order became conspicuous by the essay 
on Christianity, which he prepared for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. 
He next appeared as a great. and original thinker on the difficult ques- 
tions of political economy, particularly those connected with pauper- 
ism, and his writings on this subject are alone a noble monument of 
his genius. He was appointed to the chair of Moral Philosophy in the 
University of St. Andrew's, and afterwards to that of Theology in the 
University of Edinburgh. He became the active and acknowledged 
leader of the Free Church party in the disruption movement, and 
when the crisis came, he resigned his professorship. He was made 
Professor of Theology in the Theological School founded by the Free 
Church, and he continued to the end of his days to devote his great 
talents to the work of organizing and consolidating its afiairs. His 
pre-eminent abilities obtained recognition in his receiving the degree 
of LL.D. from the University of Oxford, and in being elected a cor- 
responding member of the Poyal Iiifetitute of France, "honors never 
before accorded to a Presbyterian divine, and seldom to a Scotchman." 

Chalmers's works, including those published posthumously, and the 
four volumes of Memoirs by his son-in-law. Dr. Hanna, which consist 
in great measure of extracts from Chalmers's Diary and Letters, 
amount to 38 volumes. 

Chalmers was great in whatever he undertook. As a man of affairs, 
his greatest work was what he did in leading the Free Church. As a 
man of letters, his greatest work was probably his Astronomical Dis- 
courses. None of his writings certainly have thus far had such en- 
during popularity. 

The Bridgev/ater Treatises. 

The Eev. Francis Henry Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, left at his 
death, 1829, eight thousand pounds sterling, to be paid to the person or 
persons who should prepare a suitable work on the power, wisdom, and 
goodness of God, as shown in the creation. The sum was divided be- 
tween eight persons, each of whom prepared a " Bridgewater " Trea- 
tise. The whole have been printed in 12 vols., and are considered 



176 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



lilii 



an extremely valuable contribution to the literature of tlie subject. 
The first of the series was by Dr. Chalmers. 



Tracts for the Times. 

Among the noticeable features, in the theological literature of this 
period, is a remarkable series of Essays, under the title of Tracts for 
the Times. These Tracts were of various sizes, from small pamphlets, 
such as usually pass under the name of tracts, up to good-sized volumes. 

The Tractarian movement began in 1833. The originators of it 
were Pusey, Keble, J. H. Newman, E.. H. Froude, Bose, Isaac Wil- 
liams, Ward, and Oakley. These gentlemen thought that the Church 
of England was in danger from certain political tendencies in the Gov- 
ernment, and they resolved to undertake to counteract these tendencies 
by writing a series of thoughtful and scholarly tracts, setting forth, in 
a calm and sober way, the views which they " held in regard to the 
character and functions of the church. The main points on which 
they insisted were the doctrines of Apostolical Succession, Baptismal 
Begeneration, and the Beal Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The 
Tracts for the first two or three years attracted little attention. After 
a time, however, as one tract followed another, and as the doctrines set 
forth became more and more sharply defined, the public mind became 
excited, and a general agitation ensued, which shook to the founda- 
tions not only the Church of England, but the Episcopal Church in 
the United States. Several of the leaders, ISTewman, Ward, Oakley, 
Archdeacon Wilberforce, and about two hundred other clergymen, 
with an equal number of prominent laymen, went over to the Church 
of Borne. 

Essays and Reviews. 

In 1860 a volume appeared called Essays and Beviews. It was a 
soit of rebound from the extreme high-church doctrines of the Tracts 
for the Times, and contained doctrines which it seemed difficult for 
ordinary Christians to reconcile with any fixed belief in Christianity 
and the Bible. Being written by men who were members and digni- 
taries of the Church of England, the Essays and Beviews produced a 
prodigious agitation, and an attempt was made to silence and punish 
the writers, by ecclesiastical and legal proceedings, according to the 
forms peculiar to the English national church. A decision adverse 
to the writers was obtained in the Court of Arches, the highest eccle- 
siastical court, in 1862; but the decision was reversed on a final ap- 
peal to the Privy Council, in 1864. 



WORDSWORTH AND CONTEMPORARIES. 177 

The excitement produced by the publication of Essays and Eeviews 
was greater even than that produced by Tracts for the Times. Be- 
sides the agitation of this .subject in Convocation and in the Courts, 
more than fifty controversial volumes and pamphlets about it have 
been published. As under the influence of the Tracts for the Times 
many members of the Church of England went over to the Church of 
Eome, so under the influence of the Essays and Eeviews many have 
become thoroughly and openly infidel. 

Isaac Taylor. 

Isaac Taylor, LL.D., 1787-1865, studied theology originally with 
the intention of preaching, and afterwards studied law, but finally 
settled down into the life of a literary recluse, living in the country, 
and sending out, from time to time, the fruits of his study and of his 
musings. His works are scholarly and thoughtful, though quiet and 
subdued in tone, and have exercised a powerful influence upon the 
formation of opinion. 

His best known work is the Natural History of Enthusiasm. It 
was published anonymously, and made so deep an impression, that 
when the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, 
the highest professorship in that institution, became vacant, Dr. 
Chalmers publicly called upon the unknown author to declare him- 
self, and become a candidate for the office. Taylor declared himself 
accordingly, and came near being elected, though the rival candidate 
was no less a man than Sir William Hamilton. 

Mrs. Sherwood. 

Mrs. Mary M. Sherwood, 1775-1851, was one of the first to employ 
fiction as a means of religious instruction to the young. She was not 
only a voluminous writer, but to some extent was the founder of a 
school of writers. The great popularity of some of her religious fic- 
tions for the young has contributed largely to the demand for books 
of this kind, which is one of the most noticeable features in the reli- 
gious literature of the day. The present enormous growth of Sunday- 
school story-books sprang from, the taste created by the works of Mrs. 
Sherwood, and of a few other writers of the same kind. 

The two stories of Mrs. Sherwood's which are best known are : 
Little Henry and His Bearer ; and Little Lucy and her Dhaye. 
Probably not one child in ten, in England or America, has passed 
through the Sunday-school without reading these two stories, which 
are indeed classics of their kind. 

M 



178 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

V. HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, ETC. 

Lingard. 

John Lingard, D.D., LL.D,, 1771-1851, gained for himself lasting 
fame by his History of England. Lingard was educated at the Cath- 
olic College at Douay, in France, and took orders in the Church of 
Rome, but spent the greater part of his life in the composition of the 
great work already referred to. This was a History of England, 
from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of William 
and Mary, in 1668. 

Lingard's History has been subjected to severe and searching criti- 
cism, and has been denounced by some as a partisan work. The 
most deliberate assault was that made by the Edinburgh Eeview, in 
which the reviewer charged the author, not only with partisanship, 
but with falsifying the facts of history. The charges were so gross, 
and were put forth with so much boldness, tha.t Dr. Lingard replied 
in a pamphlet Vindication, of great ability. 

Lingard's work, being a history of English affairs as seen by mem- 
bers of the Church of Eome, and being the fruit of original and care- 
ful study, with all the advantages of modern criticism and research, 
led many Englishmen doubtless to see, for the first time, that there 
were two sides to many parts of the story. The earnest discussions, 
however, which ensued, have not shaken the author's credit for hon- 
esty. The utmost that is now alleged is, that in telling the story he 
has had a leaning for his own side of the question, and that his 
judgment of men and of affairs is to be received with some degree of 
caution. 

Of the literary merits of his work, there has been but one opinion. 
All his critics, the Edinburgh Eeviewer included, award him. the 
highest praise for beauty of style. 

Sir Archibald Alison. 

Sir Archibald Alison, 1792-1867, a graduate of the University of 
Edinburgh, is highly distinguished as an historian, and as a writer on 
political economy and on politics. He is favorably known also as a 
writer on law. The most important by far of all his works, however, 
are his histories. These are the History of Europe from the Com- 
mencement of tlie French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bour- 
bons (1789-1815), in 14 vols., 8vo, and the History of Europe from 
1815 to 1852, in 6 vols. To these should be added his Life of the 



WORDSWOETH AND CONTEMPORARIES. 179 

Duke of Marlborough, intended to be read as an introduction to the 
two preceding. 

Mr. Alison is a high Tory in politics, and this has tinctured to some 
extent his views of public affairs. Yet he has never been accused, 
even by his political opponents, of perverting the facts of history. 

Sharon Turner. 

Sharon Turner, 1768-1847, made several important contributions 
to history. His best known publication is a History of the Anglo- 
Saxons, comprising the history of England from the earliest period 
to the Norman Conquest. 

Lord Campbell. 

John, Lord Campbell, 1779-1861, a native of Scotland, and a son 
of Dr. George Campbell, the author of Philosophy of Ehetoric, at- 
tained great eminence as a lawyer and a statesman ; was raised to the 
peerage, and made Lord Chancellor of England. He wrote the Lives 
of the Lord Chancellors, 7 vols., 8vo, and the Lives of the Chief Jus- 
tices, 3 vols. His Lives of the Chancellors and of the Chief Justices 
are regarded as of great historical value, besides being written in a 
pleasing and attractive style. 

VI. MISCELLANEOUS ^A/'RITERS. 

Arnold of Rugby. 

Thomas Arnold, D. D., 1795-1842, is known the world over as 
"Arnold of E-ugby," from the great educational work which he per- 
formed in that renowned school. Arnold was Head Master of E-ugby 
from 1827 to the time of his death. During the last two years of his 
life he was also Eegius Professor of Modern History in Oxford. His 
principal works are : History of Kome (unfinished) ; Lectures on 
Modern History; and Sermons (3 vols.). He published also an edi- 
tion of Thucydides, showing fine critical power and ripe scholarship. 

The great work of Arnold, however, was the religious life which he in- 
fused into the Kugby School, and through it, by example, into the other 
great public schools of England where most of the sons of high-born 
Englishmen are educated. This work he accomplished, partly by the 
singular vigor and force of his intellectual character, but mainly by 
the thorough, inwrought religiousness of his own life. It was what 
he was, quite as much as what he did, that made him a power among 
his boys. 



180 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Arnold's Life and Correspondence, by Stanley, has been published 
in 2 vols. But the best picture of the daily life of the great Head 
Master is to be found in Tom Brown's School-Days at Eugby, by 
Hughes. 

Matthe^A^ Arnold. 

Matthew Arnold, 1822 , a son of Arnold of Eugby, was elected 

in 1857 Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. 

His chief publications are : Essays in Criticism ; Culture and Anar- 
chy ; Schools and Universities of the Continent. 

Archibald Alison. 

Archibald Alison, 1757-1839, father of the historian, is chiefly 
known by his work on the Nature and Principles of Taste, first pub- 
lished in 1790. 





CHAPTER XIV. 

Tennyson and his Contemporaries. 

(18SO-1873.) 

The last period of our work begins with 1850, and continues to the 
present time. After the death of Wordsworth, in 1850, the undisputed 
chief of English letters was Alfred Tennyson, Poet-Laureate. Tenny- 
son began to be distinguished about the time that Victoria became 
Queen, and his career as a poet is intimately associated with the reign 
of that great and good sovereign. 

The writers of this period are divided into seven sections : 1. The 
Poets, beginning with Tennyson; 2. The Novelists, beginning with 
Dickens ; 3, Writers on Literature and Politics, beginning with Car- 
lyle ; 4. Writers on Philosophy and Science, beginning with Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton ; 5. Writers on History, Biography, Antiquities, and 
Travel, beginning with Macaulay ; 6. Writers on Theology and Beli- 
gion, beginning with John Henry Newman ; 7. Miscellaneous Writers, 
beginning with the Howitts. 

I. THE PQETS. 

Tennyson. 

Alfred Tennyson, 1810 , Poet-Laureate, is one of the few thus 

honored who have really deserved the distinction. 

Like Wordsworth, Tennyson rose by slow degrees into full and 
complete recognition ; and nothing is more noteworthy in his career 
than the calm deliberation and design with which every part of his 
career as an author has been planned. His works bear, to a less de- 
gree than those of any known author, the mark of chance or of haste ; 
16 181 



182 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

they are, on the contrary, the legitimate fruits of the highest order of 
genius united with the most patient toil. 

Tennyson was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire. His life has been 
an uneventful one, passed for a time in study at Cambridge, with young 
Hallam, whose early death furnished the text for In Memoriam ; then 
in studious retirement at Farringford House, Isle of Wight ; and, since 
1869, at Petersfield in Hampshire. 

His first independent volume appeared in 1830, under the title : 
Poems, chiefly Lyrical. Then, for many years, the poet seemed to be 
dormant. At length, in 1847, appeared the Princess. This fairy 
stranger was at first a puzzle to the critics. The grim veterans of the 
Edinburgh and the Quarterly knew not what to make of its apparent 
fantastic incongruity, and almost shut their eyes to the depth of under- 
lying thought. Twenty years have elapsed since then, and the Prin- 
cess is now recognized in its true character, as a profound and artistic 
handling of a great living question. 

Two years later, in 1849, appeared his masterpiece. In Memoriam, 
in commemoration of a young friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who had 
died sixteen years before. It explains the author's long silence. In 
Memoriam is- the growth of years of grief and self-communing ; it is 
the quintessence of sorrow, crystallized into the most poetic form, and 
generalized for all mankind. The poet has here struck every chord 
of woe in the human heart ; he has a message for every mourner, a 
word of sympathy for every Job-like doubter. There is not, in any 
language, a poem that has a nobler mission, and fulfils that mission 
more nobly, than In Memoriam. It is not the selfish wailing of a man 
over the loss of his friend ; it is the lamentation of the poet Jeremiah 
over all human woe. 

In singular contrast to In Memoriam came Tennyson's next poem — 
Maud. This very contrast, perhaps, was one of the reasons why 
Maud was at first received so coldly by the reviewers. But all doubts 
and dismal prognostications were dispelled by the appearance of ;,the 
Idylls of the King. The success of the Idylls was paralleled only by 
that of In Memoriam. In some respects it is perhaps a more popular 
book. 

Tennyson is essentially a lyric poet, of the impassioned but reflective 
order ; he is the child of the present generation in all its culture, its 
refinement, its tendency to doubt, its love of artistic form. His style 
is the most finished since the days of Shakespeare and Milton. At 
times, indeed, it seems almost too faultless, and makes the reader wish 
for a little of Browning's ruggedness. In the choice of words, espe- 
cially of predicates, and in the adaptation of old or almost obsolete 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 183 

words to new uses, Tennyson has not his equal in modern English 
literature. Whether we read the Lady of Shallot, or Locksley Hall, 
or the Vision of Art, or In Memoriam, or the Idylls of the King, 
we find everywhere the most exquisite adjustment of word to thought, 
the rarest suggestiveness of imagery, and the most perfect freedom 
and variety of construction. In style, certainly, Tennyson is the first 
model after Milton. 

Robert Browning. 

Eobert Browning, 1812 , stands conspicuous among the poets 

of his day, being inferior to Tennyson only. Mr. Browning was mar- 
ried in 1846 to the poetess Elizabeth Barrett, since which time he has 
lived on the continent, and chiefly at Florence, in Italy. 

Mr. Browning's first publication was Paracelsus. It was highly 
commended by the critics, but met with little popular favor. He next 
produced the Tragedy of Strafibrd, which in the opinion of good 
judges ought to have been successful, but somehow it did not succeed, 
though presented by no less an actor than Macready. So has it been 
pretty much with all of Mr. Browning's writings. They give unmis- 
takable evidences of genius, but they are not popular. The author 
does not court popularity, and apparently does not value it, not present 
popularity at least, preferring to await the verdict of " those who shall 
come after." But there is a studied obscurity in his meaning, particu- 
larly in his works of greatest mark, which will be quite as repellent to 
readers of the twentieth century as to those of the nineteenth. He 
will probably always have, as he now has, a few devoted worshippers, 
but he will never be the idol of the many. The critics will laud, but 
the people will not read. 

Other Works, — His principal works, in addition to those already 
named, are Sordello ; Pippa Passes, a Drama ; The Blot in the 
'Scutcheon, a Drama ; The Eing and the Book. The poem last named 
is his largest work, and the one in which all his peculiarities, good 
and bad, are most strongly marked. Some of his short pieces, like 
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and How we Brought the Good News 
from Ghent to Aix, are those by which he has gained his chief popu- 
larity. 

Mrs. Browning. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1807-1861, is generally admitted 
to be the greatest of English poetesses. 

Early Career. — Mrs. Browning (Elizabeth Barrett) was the daugh- 
ter of a wealthy merchant of London, and had the advantage of a 



184 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

superior education. She was, in particular, thoroughly versed in the 
Latin and Greek languages. She began authorship very early in 
life, writing both in prose and verse at the age of ten, and publishing 
a volume of poems at the age of seventeen. Her health was always deli- 
cate, so that she was unable to bear the strain of the highest intellec- 
tual achievements. Had her physical powers been commensurate with 
her intellectual, it would not be easy to assign a limit to what she might 
have accomplished. She undoubtedly had genius of the highest order. 
But a great poem, or a great work of art of any kind, can onlyHDe 
produced by the expenditure of great and long-continued labor, and 
to such labor Mrs. Browning's physical frame was at no time adequate. 
What she achieved, therefore, brilliant as much of it was, and enduring 
as some of it doubtless will be, must yet be accepted rather as an inti- 
mation of what she might have done than its full realization. 

Works. — Her largest single work is Aurora Leigh, a narrative 
poem, which met with immediate and general favor. Casa Guidi 
Windows, written in Italy, and giving expression to her thoughts and 
feelings on Italian affairs, is thought to contain the finest efforts of her 
genius. Some of her other publications are : The Drama of Exile ; 
Prometheus Bound, a translation from the Greek ; Lady Geraldine's 
Courtship ; The Cry of the Children. Her Sonnets deserve particular 
mention ; they are numerous, and of extraordinary excellence. Many 
a single sonnet in the collection is enough to make a reputation. The 
Sonnets from the Portuguese, so called, are thought to describe the 
love-making between her and Mr. Browning. 

She was happily married in 1846 to the poet Eobert Browning, and 
lived thereafter on the continent, chiefly in Italy, to the manifest im- 
provement of her health. The poems of these later years are by far 
her best. 

Mrs. Norton. 

Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, 1808 - — —, is a poetess of 
no little celebrity. She is a grand-daughter of Eichard Brinsley 
Sheridan. She began her career as a writer very early in life. At 
the age of twelve she wrote a satire, The Dandies' Eout, and, at seven- 
teen. The Sorrows of Eosalie. Her first work of merit, however, is 
The Undying One, a poem published in 1830. Since that time she 
has given to the world a number of tales and poems. The Voice from 
the Factories and The Child of the Islands, like Mrs. Browning's Cry 
of the Children, are vigorous protests against the degraded condition 
of the English poor. 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPOEAEIES. 185 

Procter — '^^Barry Cornwall." 

Bryan Waller Procter, 1790 , better known as " Barry Corn- 
wall," was a poet of great merit. Mr. Procter forms a connecting link 
between the present generation and one that has already become his- 
torical. So late even as 1866, he came before the public with a new 
work of considerable size, yet he was famous fifty years ago ; — the 
contemporary and associate of Byron and Moore. 

Mr. Procter's first publication. Dramatic Scenes, appeared in 1821. 
It was an attempt to, reproduce some of the best features of the older 
English drama, and was remarkably successful. 

Some of Mr. Procter's other publications are: Portraits of the 
British Poets, illustrated by Notes, Biographical, Critical, and Poet- 
ical ; English Songs and other small Poems ; Essays and Tales in 
Prose. ' 

Adelaide Procter. 

Adelaide Anne Procter, 1825-1864, daughter of the poet Procter, is 
herself a poet by divine right. She is the "golden-tressed Adelaide" 
celebrated in one of her father's songs. 

Her first considerable publication was in 1858, a volume entitled 
Legends and Lyrics. It met with immediate success, and passed 
through a large number of editions. A second series of Legends and 
Lyrics appeared in 1860. 

Philip James Bailey. 

Philip James Bailey, 1816 , published at the age of twenty a 

poem called Festus, which created a great sensation. "It was an 
extraordinary production, out-Heroding Kant in some of its philosophy, 
and out-Goetheing Goethe in the introduction of the three persons of the 
Trinity as interlocutors in its wild plot. Most objectionable as it was 
on this account, it yet contained many exquisite passages of genuine 
poetry." The poem was subsequently both pruned and enlarged. 

Aytoun. 
William Edmondstone Aytoun, 1813-1865, son-in-law of Professor 
Wilson (Christopher North), and Professor of Literature and Belles- 
Lettres in the University of Edinburgh, was for many years also a 
contributor and finally editor of Blackwood's Magazine. Prof. 
Aytoun' s publications are numerous. The following are the principal : 
Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers ; Firrailian, a Spasmodic Tragedy ; Bal- 
lads of Scotland. The ballads are highly commended by all the critics. 
*16* 



186 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The Spasmodic Tragedy is designed to satirize some modern mani- 
festations of a false and extravagant taste in poetry. The Lays is by 
far his most popular work. 

Bonar. 

Horatius Bonar, D.D., 1808 , is a religious poet of singular 

sweetness and beauty, many of whose sacred lyrics have already found 
their way into the hymnals of nearly every Protestant church. 

Biekersteth. 

Eev. Edward Henry Biekersteth, — , son of the Rev. Ed- 
ward Biekersteth, has become widely known as the author of an epic 
poem called Yesterday, To-day, and Forever. 

Charlotte Elliott. 

Charlotte Elliott, 1871, is known among all English-speaking 

Christians by her beautiful hymn. Just as I Am. She was a grand- 
daughter of Rev. John Venn. She lived during the greater part of 
her life at Torquay, but spent her last years at Brighton. She pub- 
lished Hours of Sorrow, 1836 ; Morning and Evening Hymns for a 
Week, 1842 ; Poems, 1863. She was through life an invalid and suf- 
ferer, and much of her own experience is breathed into her hymns. 

Jean Ingelow. 

Jean Ingelow, 1830 , is favorably known as a poet and as a 

writer of tales and sketches. She was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, 
England, but has resided most of her life in London. Her first vol- 
ume of poems was published in 1863, and at once gave her rank as one 
of the greatest living female poets. Her second volume of poems was 
published in 1867, and her last in 1870. She has written five volumes 
of prose stories for children, which have had a large sale. One of her 
poems, High Tide on the Coast of Lancashire, has been a great favor- 
ite with American readers. 

Morris. 

William Morris, 1830 , without any preliminary heralding, rose 

at once to fiime by the publication, in 1867, of a long narrative poem, 
the Life and Death of Jason, and, in the years 1868-1871, of a still 
longer poem, the Earthly Paradise. 

These poems are unlike any others in our literature, though more 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 187 

suggestive of tlie poetry of Chaucer than of anything else, and they 
place the author unquestionably in the rank of great poets. 

The Earthly Paradise consists of legends derived from the classical 
and mediaeval periods, set in a framework belonging to the age of 
Chaucer. " Certain gentlemen and mariners of Norway, having con- 
sidered all that they had heard of the Earthly Paradise, set sail to find 
it, and after many troubles, and the lapse of many years, came, old 
men, to some western land of which they had never before heard." 
Missing the " Happy Isles," which poets had fabled, the worn and 
disappointed Wanderers find some comfort in the hospitality extended 
to them by the Elders of this western city. Twice each month, at a 
solemn feast made for their entertainment, some chronicle of the olden 
time is rehearsed, alternately by one of the city Elders and by one of 
the Wanderers. The chronicles rehearsed by the • city Elders are 
classical, being legends from the Greek mythology ; those rehearsed 
by the Wanderers are taken from other traditions, chiefly mediaeval. 
The twelve months of the year thus give occasion for twenty-four of 
these chronicles, each chronicle being by itself a long narrative poem. 
Between the several pairs of chronicles are* pleasant interludes of song, 
keeping up the connection of the whole with the original adventure. 
The whole poem makes a large work aboyit the size of the Canterbury 
Tales. 

II. THE NOVELISTS. 

Dickens. 

Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, was, on the whole, the greatest novel- 
ist of his day, and one of the greatest of all time. 

His Career. — Dickens was designed for the profession of the law, 
and began studying for that purpose, but not finding the business 
congenial, he became a reporter of the parliamentary debates for 
some of the London papers. While engaged in this work for the 
Morning Chronicle, he wrote for the evening edition of that paper 
Sketches of Life and Character by Boz. These Sketches immediately 
arrested attention. One of the booksellers thereupon engaged Dick- 
ens to write, and a comic draughtsman to illustrate, the adventures 
of a party of cockney sportsmen. This was the origin of the famous 
Pickwick Papers by Boz, with Illustrations by Phiz. The book was 
instantly and universally popular. All England and America were 
in a roar over Pickwick, and Sam Weller, and the other notabilities 
of that wonderful book. From that date onward the author was in 
constant demand, the greedy public, like his own Oliver, ever " ask- 



188 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

ing for more ; " and he continued, up to the very day of his death, to 
pour forth book after book with unceasing and most prolific actiyity. 

In 1841 Mr. Dickens visited the United States, where he was lion- 
ized extensively, and on his return to England, he published in the 
following year American Notes for General Circulation. Some of 
his laughable caricatures of American manners and society gave 
great umbrage, the Americans then being more thin-skinned in such 
matters than they have since become, and forgetting that the humor- 
ist was doing for us exactly what we admired so much and enjoyed so 
heartily in his dealings with his own countrymen. In his next suc- 
ceeding novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, in which the hero has experience 
of American life, the same features appeared, and we Americans be- 
came seriously and most absurdly angry. But this feeling gradually 
passed away, and when, near the close of his life, he again visited our 
country, for the purpose of giving a course of public readings, he was 
everywhere received with the most hearty welcome. 

In 1850 he started a weekly paper. Household Words, which he 
conducted for several years, and which had a very large circulation. 
In 1859 he began another periodical of similar character, called All 
the Year Eound. Most of his novels and tales appeared first as seri- 
als in the periodicals with which he was connected. For many years 
before his death he published annually a Christmas Story. These 
Christmas Stories became a notable feature in his authorship, and are 
among his very happiest efforts. 

The following are his principal works : Pickwick Papers ; Oliver 
Twist; Nicholas Nickleby; Master Humphrey's Clock; Barnaby 
Kudge ; Martin Chuzzlewit ; Dombey and Son ; David Copperfield ; 
Bleak House; Hard Times; Little Dorrit; A Tale of Two Cities; 
Great Expectations; Our Mutual Friend; The Commercial Traveller; 
Sketches by Boz. 

Mr. Dickens was an excellent reader, and he had all the talents 
and qualities needed to become a first-rate actor. Towards the close 
of his life he gave public Headings of portions of his own works, with 
great applause ; and his second visit to America, which was in 1867, 
was for this purpose. It was strictly a professional tour, and was 
eminently successful. He gave a great pleasure to many hundreds 
of thousands of his admirers, and added by the tour both to his fame 
and his fortune. 

Dickens died suddenly in the midst of his literary labors, and in 
the full maturity of his powers. His constitution, both mental and 
physical, was extremely active and vigorous, capable, apparently, of 
any amouht of work that his royal will saw fit to impose ; and, in the 



TEIS-NYSON- AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 189 

consciousness of this abounding strength, he drew too freely upon his 
vital force. He even went farther, and stimulated his flagging ener- 
gies by an over-generous diet and by the free use of strong drinks, to 
enable him to bear the enormous strain put upon his powers, until at 
length nature gave way, and he died in the very height and flood-tide 
of abounding life. 

Thackeray. 

William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811-1863, shares with Dickens 
and Bulwer in the supremacy of the world of fiction. 

He was educated at the Charter-House School, London, and at 
Cambridge. He inherited a handsome fortune, which he lost and 
wasted. For some time he studied art in England and on the conti- 
nent, but finally decided upon literature as a vocation. He became a 
regular contributor to Fraser, Punch, the Times, the New Monthly 
Magazine, and other periodicals. Many of his most brilliant sketches 
appeared in this fugitive form. Among them are the Book of Snobs, 
Fitzboodle's Confessions, and Mr, Michael Augelo Titmarsh's numer- 
ous sketches and essays. 

Thackeray's first great work. Vanity Fair, appeared as a serial in 
1847-8. It was followed in order by Pendennis, Harry Esmond, The 
Newcomes, and The Virginians. Besides these great v/orks of fiction 
should be mentioned his Lectures on the English Humorists of the 
Eighteenth Century, and on the Four Georges. 

Thackeray, like Dickens, is intensely realistic. He describes men 
and women as he finds them in tHe world in which he lives. In his 
method, however, he difiers widely from Dickens, and shows his own 
immense superiority. Pie does not content himself with drawing por- 
traits or caricatures ; he takes a strongly marked character, divests it 
of everything merely accidental, makes it general, and thus creates a 
type of character. Thus Major Pendennis and young Pen himself are 
not merely individuals ; they are types of their whole class. The 
same may be said of Becky Sharp, Ethel Newcome, Beatrix Esmond. 
By the side of them, the Pecksniffs, Gradgrinds, Squeerses, fade away 
into mere names — labels for bundles of hateful qualities. 

It is difficult to pronounce upon tlie comparative merits of Thacke- 
ray's works. Perhaps FLarry Esmond is the most artistic. Vanity Fair 
the cleverest, and The Newcomes the most satisfactory. Nothing in 
them, however, surpasses, as a creation, the faultless figure of Major 
Pendennis. No one, not even Shakespeare, could have exhausted 
more completely the characteristics of bachelor-uncledom. 

In style, Thackeray is most happy. His pages tingle with satire, 



190 ' ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

or radiate with broad humor. There is no vagueness, no weakness, in 
the strokes with which he portrays or narrates. Everything suggests 
healthy life, thought, and emotion. Even his minor works display 
the same unerring hand. His Lectures, also, are full of healthy 
humor and sound analysis. In short, as a man and a writer, Thacke- 
ray has left, by his death, a void in English letters which will not 
soon be filled, and a fame second only to that of Scott. 

Bulwer-Lytton. 

Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1805 , stands clearly in the 

first class of English novelists., Bulwer, Thack.eray, and Dickens 
form a trio of great names, so nearly equal that it is not easy to deter- 
mine which should bear the palm. Each has his advocates ; each has, 
in fact, a greatness of his own, differing in kind, rather than in degree, 
from that of the others. 

Lord Lytton, or Bulwer, as he is generally known to American 
readers, evinced very early in life an aptitude for letters. He may be 
considered, however, to have fairly made his debut as an author in 
1828, by the publication of Pelham. Since that time an unremitting 
stream of novels and other works has poured from his pen. These 
are so well known in England and America that a complete list of 
them is scarcely necessary in this place. 

His principal novels are Pelham ; Devereux ; Eugene Aram ; The 
Last Days of Pompeii ; Rienzi ; Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings; 
The Caxtons; My Novel; What will He do with It; A Strange 
Story. He has also published several dramas, of which Eichelieu 
and The Lady of Lyons are the most famous ; The New Timon and 
Other Poems ; and many poems and ballads translated from Schiller. 
In the field of politics he has distinguished himself as a pamphleteer 
by The Crisis, Letters to John Bull, Esq., and other able writings of 
the kind. 

The preceding sketch is only an outline of Bulwer's varied, intense, 
and protracted labors. He is probably the most prolific English 
writer of fame in the present century, and, in company with Scott, 
Dickens, and Thackeray, is one of those most widely read. 

Those of his novels which have their scene in England portray the 
society of the upper classes almost exclusively. They are" full of life 
and energy, the characters are strongly marked, the plot is deeply 
laid, if not always probable, and the language flows smoothly, and at 
times even eloquently. It must be objected to his novels, however, 
that they have a feature of sameness. That is to say, the same funda- 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 191 

mental characters of ex-minister, tlie young lord his friend, unknown 
heir, villain, etc., are repeated, in slightly varied forms, through a 
long series of works. The language, too, is often grandiloquent rather 
than eloquent, and the style is diffuse. His historical novels display 
great reading and remarkable powers of invention ; Harold, Eienzi, 
and The Last Days of Pompeii are, as art-constructions, superior to 
anything in their line except Thackeray's Esmond and Virginians. 

Bulwer cannot be said to have created any new types of character. 
He has portrayed certain features and elements of English society, and 
classified the characters which compose that society. But he has pro- 
duced no grand creations, that will be handed down to coming gen- 
erations as models — no such men and women as Jennie Deans, Caleb 
Balderstone, Becky Sharp, Major Pendennis, Mrs. Gamp, Mr. Micaw- 
ber, and many others that might be selected from the works of his 
great contemporaries. 

Disraeli — Father and Son. 

Isaac Disraeli, 1766-1848, was of Jewish extraction, the son of a 
Venetian merchant, but was born in England, near London, and was 
educated at Leyden and Amsterdam. Having literary tastes, and 
ample means for their indulgence, Mr. Disraeli addicted himself 
through life to investigations which have redounded greatly to the 
benefit of English letters. 

His chief works are : Curiosities of Literature ; Calamities of 
Authors ; Quarrels of Authors ; Amenities of Literature. 

Et. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, 1805 , son of Isaac, added to 

the literary tastes of his father a strong passion and talent for political 
life. 

Mr. Disraeli published his first work, Vivian Grey, in 1826, when 
he was only twenty-one years old, and from that time to the present, 
now almost half a century, he has been a man of mark, and has been 
continually rising. 

In political life, after several sharp contests and defeats, he succeeded 
in getting into Parliament. There he lias signalized himself by bril- 
liant abilities as a debater ; he rose to be at different times Chancellor 
of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, and finally, in 
1868, to be Prime Minister. The Tory and aristocratic party, of which 
he is a member, dislike and distrust him, but cannot dispense with 
the aid of a leader of such brilliant abilities, and have yielded some 
of their most cherisliQd notions rather than break with him. 

Busy as has been his political life, Mr. Disraeli has found leisure to 
keep himself constantly before the public as an author, and his publi- 



192 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

cations have been almost as numerous as the years. His principal 
productions are the following : Vivian Grey ; Voyage of Capt. Popa- 
nilla; Contarini Fleming; Alroy, the Wondrous Tale; Henrietta 
Temple ; Venetia ; Coningsby ; Sibyl, or the New Nation ; Ixion in 
Heaven ; Tancred, or the New Crusade ; Lothair. 

Lothair, the last of Mr. Disraeli's fictions, was written in the midst 
of his most engrossing occupations as a political leader in Parliament, 
and created a prodigious sensation on account of its but thinly veiled 
pictures of living men and women in the very highest circles of Eng- 
lish society. A vein of scandal, indeed, runs through nearly all his 
fictions, beginning with Vivian Grey. 

Trollops — Mother and Sons. 

Mrs. Frances Teollope, 1863, mother of the two dis- 
tinguished sons of the same name, was herself a writer of no mean 
abilities. She passed three years in America, and afterwards travelled 
and resided a number of years on the continent. In 1831 she published 
two volumes on the Domestic Manners of the Americans, which gave 
great dissatisfaction to the nation described. The book was one of the 
many of like kind on that subject, whose appearance forty or fifty 
years ago was the regular signal for denunciation and counter-denun- 
ciation. Mrs. Trollope's work contained a fair share of gossipy truth, 
many mistakes, and not a few absurdities. It was succeeded by one or 
two other books of travel, and a formidable list of novels, which were 
in great favor at the time, but which are now neglected for more 
recent favorites. 

Anthony Tkollope, 1815 , son of the preceding, has attained 

great eminence as a writer of novels. His novels are so numerous and 
so uniformly good that it is rather difficult to specialize among them. 
La Vendee, Barchester Towers, The Bertrams, Orley Farm, may per- 
haps be cited as the best. As a writer of prose fiction, Mr. TroUope 
may be set down as among the very foremost in the second class — 
reserving the first class for such magnates as Scott, Thackeray, Dick- 
ens, and Bulwer. He has not created any really great characters, 
either male or female, or invented any remarkable narratives. But, 
on the other hand, his novels are intensely realistic portraitures of 
English social life. All his works are clothed in an atmosphere of 
healthy and robust purity, alike removed from sentimentality and 
extravagance. These qualities, combined with ease of style, have 
procured for the author an immense popularity which shows no signs 
of diminution. 



TEXNYSOX AXD HIS COXTEMPOE AEIES . 193 

Thomas Adolphus Teollope, 1810 , a brother of the novel- 
ist Anthony Trollope, is himself a novelist of repute and also an his- 
torian. He has been a permanent resident of Florence for the last 
twenty years and more. Many of his novels are illustrative of Italian 
life and history. His great work, however, is his History of the Com- 
monwealth of Florence to the Fall of the Kepublic (1531), published 
in 1865. Of this it is safe to say that it is one of the most valuable 
contributions to special history that our literature possesses. The 
theme itself is fascinating, and the historian has spared no trou- 
ble or time in investigating original works and documents. The work 
reads more like a romance than a sober historical narrative. 

Charles Reade. 

Charles Eeade, D. C. L., 1814 , is one of the great English 

novelists of the present day. His first novel, Peg WoflEbigton, ap- 
peared in 1852, and established his fame. It is unsurpassed, in true 
artistic merit, by any of its more ambitious successors. The most im- 
portant of these are Christie Johnstone, Never too Late to Mend, 
"White Lies, Love Me Little Love' Me Long, The Cloister and the 
Hearth, Hard Cash, Griffith Gaunt, and Put Yourself in His Place. 

Several of Eeade" s works, especially Xever too Late to Mend, and 
Put Yourself in His Place, belong to the class of novels known as 
tendency-pieces, that is, works of imagination intended to efiect some 
ulterior object. In such cases the ulterior object is some social reform, 
which the writer hopes to bring about by showing, by means of con- 
crete, living example, the pressing want of improvement. Thus, Xever 
too Late to Mend was a vigorous protest against the then existing 
prison-system of England, and Put Yourself in His Place was intended 
to show the evils of Trades-Unions. 

Mayne Reid. 

Captain Mayne Eeid, 1818 , is the author of a large number 

of works descriptive of adventure, half fact, half fiction, which are 
chiefly captivating as boys' books. The list of his publications is very 
long. There are forty odd works, all written in the same general 
style. The best of them are, perhaps, Eifle Eangers, Boy Hunters, 
English Family Eobinson, Forest Exiles. They have been highly 
commended for the freshness and accuracy of their descriptions, and 
their general healthy tone. 

17 N 



II 
I 



194 EK^GLISH LITEEATURE. 

Charles Kingsley. 

Eev. Charles Kingsley, 1819 , has gained distinction in several 

walks of literature, but is chiefly known as a novelist. His first work 
of prominence was Alton Locke, a novel depicting the times of the 
Chartist troubles in England, His other principal works have been 
Yeast; Hypatia, the scene of which is laid in Alexandria during the 
times of the early Christian Church ; Westward Ho ! or Sir Amyas 
Leigh ; Hereward, the Last of the Saxons. 

Thomas Hughes, M. P., 1823 , better known in America, as 

in England, by his pseudonym of Tom Brown, is the author of several 
popular works. Those by which chiefly he acquired celebrity are : 
Tom Brown's School-Days, describing life at Rugby under the admin- 
istration of Arnold, and Tom Brown at Oxford, describing life at the 
University. Tom Brown at Rugby, which was to a very considerable 
degree autobiographical, took immediate hold upon the pablic heart. 
Its success was a triumph of character quite as much as of ability. 
The style had the literary charms, indeed, of directness, strength, and 
simplicity; but its supreme charm lay in its transparent veracity. 
Tom Brown at Oxford, which followed, was of the same general char- 
acter, though less fresh and forcible. 

Lever. 

Charles J. Lever, M. D., 1809-1872, was one of the best and most 
popular novelists of the century. His principal works are Harry 
Lorrequer, Charles O'Malley, Jack Hinton, Tom Burke, Maurice 
Tiernay, and Kate O'Donoghue. 

As a delineator of the droll side of Irish. life and character, and of 
army life in general, Lever is unequalled. The plot of his novels is 
usually weak, and the professed heroines are tame and conventional. 
But the other characters are all highly marked, and reveal a wealth 
of humor and fun that borders on the incredible. They are all excel- 
lent, and some of them, like Mickey Free and Major Monsoon, may 
be safely classed among the greatest literary creations. Of all care-dis- 
pelliijg, mirth-provoking books, Charles O'Malley is the most genial. It 
is one carnival of wit, humor, and revelry from end to end, with just 
enough of the shady side of life to temper the merriment, and prevent 
it from becoming monotonous. 



I 



TENKYSON AND HIS CONTE MPOE A EIES . 195 

Lover. 
Samuel Lover, 1797-1868, a native of Dublin, was the author of a 
number of sketches, songs, and novels of Irish life. His best known 
novels are Eory O' Moore, Handy Andv, and Treasure Trove. The 
Angels' Whisper, Kory O' Moore, and Molly Bawn are the most ad- 
mired of his songs. The broad, blundering fun of Handy Andy has 
been welcomed everywhere. But Mr. Lover cannot compare with his 
great rival, Charles Lever. The latter has infinitely more play and 
delicacy of feeling, and a wider range of character, as well as keener 
insight. Mr. Lover's books are simply funny. 

AVarren. 

Samuel "VVarren, LL. D., 1807 , is prominent both as a novelist, 

and as a writer on law. He is one of the few who have succeeded in 
reconciling the lighter muse with the proverbially "jealous mistress." 
His earliest work. Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician, a col- 
lection of sketches, first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, and at- 
tracted general attention. So intense was the air of reality about these 
sketches that one of Mr. Warren's critics found fault with them as a 
betrayal of professional confidence. His next — and also his best 
work — was Ten Thousand a Year, which likewise appeared in 
Blackwood as a serial. This novel has its faults, and grave ones ; it is 
too long, and, being written in the interests of the Conservative party, 
betrays too palpably its tendency. But with all its defects, it is a de- 
lightfully fascinating book, and some of its characters have already 
passed into the permanent gallery of great English creations. Tittle- 
bat Titmouse and Oily Gammon stand on an equal footing with Oliver 
Twist and Uriah Heep. 

G. P. R. James. 

George Payne Eainsford James, 1800-1860, was the most volumi- 
nous novelist of his day. In 1822 appeared his first work, Edward 
the Black Prince ; in 1829, Kichelieu, which had first received in man- 
uscript the approving verdict of Sir Walter Scott. From this time on, 
Mr. James was the producer of an almost interminable series of his- 
torical novels, amounting to one hundred and eighty-nine volumes, 
lie is a pleasing writer, and very popular ; but his works have a mo- 
notony of plot, character, and description, that render them tiresome 
to the critical reader. Any one of them is almost the precise coun- 
terpart of all the others. Mr. James cannot be said to have added 
any new creation to the world of imagination. 



196 EKGLISH LITERATURE. 

Vv/ilkie Collins. 

William Wilkie Collins, 1824 , is a distinguished novelist, and 

the son of William Collins the landscape painter. His best known 
j 1 works are The Dead Secret ; Armadale ; The Moonstone ; ISo iS'ame ; 

^ Queen of Hearts ; Woman in White ; Man and Wife, etc. 

^^ George Eliot." 

Mrs. Marian C. (Evans) Lewes, 1820 , best known by her as- 
sumed name of George Eliot, belongs to the first class of English 
novelists. Scarcely any works of fiction of the present day show 
greater originality, or power, or higher artistic finish. She is the wife 
of the author, G. H. Lewes ; she achieved, however, her great dis- 
tinction as a writer before her marriage. Her principal works arc : 
Adam Bede ; The Mill on the Floss ; Eomola ; Felix Holt the Eadical ; 
Scenes of Clerical Life ; Silas Mamer ; The Spanish Gipsy, a Poem. 

Mrs. Gaskell. 

Mrs. Elizabeth C. (Stevenson) Gaskell, 1822-1866, was a resident 
of Manchester, the wife of a Unitarian minister. She was one of the 
best of the lady novelists of the present generation ; and in her sub- 
jects, and the vigor of her delineations, came nearer than any other 
of them to her friend Charlotte Bronte. Her best works are : Mary 
Barton, a Tale of Manchester Life ; Buth, a Novel ; and a Life of 
Charlotte Bronte. 

Miss Muloek. 

Miss Dinah Maria Muloek, 1826 , is the author of several 

novels which have enjoyed a great and deserved popularity. The 
best of her works are: John Halifax, Gentleman; The Ogilvies; 
Agatha's Husband ; and A Brave Lady. Miss Mulock's forte lies in 
the development of her characters, showmg how the same general 
events tend to invigorate a healthy mind and to crush the weak and 
self-indulgent. 

Miss Yonge. 

Miss Charlotte Mary Yonge, 1823 , has attained some celebrity 

as a novelist. Her novels are of the religious cast, inculcating High 
Church principles. Her leading characters are clearly individualized, 
and she has considerable dramatic power. Her chief defect as an 
artist is want of condensation. Her stories lose power by being too 
much^^^jin out. She began publishing in 1848, and has kept up a 



TENNYSOIT AND HIS CONTEMPOE AEIES . 197 

pretty regular stream of books ever since. The number of her publi- 
cations is over fifty. The two best known are the Heir of Kedclyffe, 
and Daisy Chain. 

III. WRITERS ON LITERATURE AND POLITICS. 

Carlyle. 

Thomas Carlyle, 1795 , is pre-eminent among the writers of 

his generation for the independence and vigor of his thoughts, and 
for the air of supreme authority with which his opinions are uttered. 

Mr. Carlyle is a native of Scotland. He was educated at the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, and for some years engaged in teaching, but 
about the age of twenty -nine gave himself up wholly to literature and 
authorship. 

Mr. Carlyle's first publications were contributions to Brewster's 
Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. His next work was a translation of 
Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, which was followed by a Life of Schiller. 
The preparation of these two works seems to have given to his 
thoughts and studies that strong bent towards German ideas and 
modes of expression which have formed such a prominent feature in 
his writings ever since. 

This feature was especially marked in his next work, Sartor Eesar- 
tus, professedly a translation from a German treatise on the philoso- 
phy of clothes. In this curious miscellany, under a quaint form, and 
in a diction and phraseology strangely outlandish, the author venti- 
lates his opinions on a great variety of subjects, and with a freshness, 
vigor, and acuteness of thought, that show on every page the master- 
hand. Sartor Eesartus gave Carlyle his first strong hold upon the 
public mind ; and he has been recognized ever since as a leading force 
in the world of opinion. 

His subsequent works have been Chartism ; Hero- Worship ; Past 
and Present ; Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell ; Life of John 
Sterling ; Latter-Day Pamphlets ; The French Kevolution ; and Life 
of Frederick the Great. He has published also five volumes of Mis- 
cellanies. 

Mr. Carlyle has a great contempt for weakness, either in individ- 
uals or in races, and a corresponding admiration for strength, and is 
not far from saying, in so many words, that might makes right. In- 
deed, his special delight is in saying and boldly avowing whatever is 
glaringly paradoxical. His chief heroes, above all other men, are 
Mohammed, Cromwell, Napoleon, and Frederick the Great. He is 
17* 



198 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

provokingly arrogant and dogmatic, and yet he charms and fasci- 
nates. He calls us all fools, blockheads, knaves, scoundrels, and yet 
he does it with such an imperial air, that we all like to hear him ; we 
listen to his voice as though it were verily that of Jupiter Tonans 
speaking audibly from Mount Olympus. 

Ruskin. 

John Euskin, 1819 , is the father of the modern English school 

of art-criticism, and one of the greatest masters of English prose. His 
earliest work was Modern Painters, intended to show their superior- 
ity over the ancients in landscape painting. This was followed by 
the Seven Lamps of Architecture, i. e., the seven moral or psychical 
principles of architecture. In 1851 ajjpeared what will probably be 
regarded as his greatest work, The Stones of Venice, accompanied by 
illustrations of Venetian architecture. Kuskin devoted to this work 
years of patient toil and study, copying on the spot all the chief 
architectural features of the city. E-uskin's powers of description, 
although often over-exerted, ar^ very great, and his style has the 
merit of suggestiveness. No one with a cultivated mind can read at 
random in Euskin's writings without seizing and carrying oiF some 
idea capable of development by the reader himself This it is, after 
all, which constitutes the lasting merit of Euskin's works. 

Max MUller.^ 

Frederick Max Miiller, 1823 , has done a signal public service, 

and has connected himself indissolubly with English letters, by his 
successive works on the Science of Language. He is a native of Ger- 
many, but has passed by far the greater part of his life in England, 
and has written nearly all his works in English. His works may be 
grouped into two classes : those on comparative philology and mythol- 
ogy, and those on Sanscrit proper. The latter are embodied in the 
edition of the Eig-Veda, made by Miiller for the East India Com- 
pany ; his translation of the Eig-Veda, of which the first volume has 
appeared; his Sanscrit Grammar; his History of Ancient Sanscrit 
Literature ; and a number of scattered essays and contributions. As a 
writer on comparative philology and mythology, he is best known by 
his Lectures on the Science of Language, in two volumes, and by a 
number of articles that, for a long while, were scattered through re- 
views and scientific journals, but are now collected into a series of 
volumes entitled Chips from a German "Workshop. He occupies the 



TEITKYSOI?" AND HIS CONTE MPOE A RIES . 199 

cliair of Modern Languages at Oxford, and is the most eminent San- 
scrit scholar that England has possessed since the death of Wilson. 

Sir George Corne^vall Lewis. 

Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 1806 , is among the ablest and 

most original critics of the day, especially on historical subjects. His 
chief work is an Inquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman His- 
tory. Sir George is a vigorous writer and able scholar, belonging to 
the so-called destructive school of criticism. He rejects the entire 
early history of Eome, even X iebuhr's theory of it, as utterly without 
historic evidence. 

Prof. Latham. 

Eobert Gordon Latham, F. E. S., 1812 , Professor of English 

Literature in University College, London, holds a high rank among 
English philologists. 

His best known writings are : A Treatise on the English Language ; 
Man and his Migrations ; and Ethnology of Europe. 

Craik. 

George L. Craik, 1799-1866, Professor of English Literature and 
History, in Queen's College, Belfast, is the author of a valuable work, 
on the History of English Literature and Language. It has been 
republished in the United States in two large vols., 8vo, and is one of 
the very best works on the subject yet printed. 

John Stuart Mill. 

John Stuart Mill, 1806 , has been a contributor to the leading 

reviews, and was, for several years, co-editor of the Westminster. He 
lias also taken a prominent part in politics, and been honored with an 
election to Parliament. He belongs to the radical, progressive party 
in England. 

Besides his scattered pieces he has published the following works : 
A System of Logic, 2 vols. ; Principles of Political Economy, 2 vols. ; 
An Essay On Liberty; and, very recently, An Essay On the Subjec- 
tion of Woman. 

As a writer on philosophical or abstract subjects, no one has ever 
surpassed Mr. Mill for clearness and cogency of statement. As a 
scholar, his reputation is great and well founded. As a thinker, he 
is clear-headed and earnest. "Wli ether or not his views are sound, stiU 
remains to be proven. Many, even of the same party, fear that they 



200 EiN-QLISH LITERATURE. 

are too ultra, too theoretical to be applied with safety to practical sub- 
jects. In political economy, Mr. Mill is a champion of free-trade, 
and a fearless opponent of the present absorption of land in England 
by a few enormously wealthy owners. 

Gladstone. 

Et. Hon. William E. Gladstone, 1809 — — , great equally as a 
statesman, an author, and an orator, has risen by slow but sure de- 
grees, through the various stages of advancement, until in 1868 he 
became the Prime Minister of the Crown. Like several of the other 
great statesmen of Great Britain of the present day, Mr. Gladstone, in 
the midst of his intense parliamentary labors, has found time to em- 
ploy his pen on subjects of general concern. His works, though not 
numerous, are in the highest degree scholarly and able, and sufficient 
of themselves to give him rank among the great writers of the age. 
The following are the chief: The State in its Relation to the Church ; 
Juventus Mundi, the Gods and Men of the Heroic Age ; Studies on 
Homer and the Homeric Age. 

The Earl of Derby. 

Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, Earl of Derby, 1799-1869, a dis- 
tinguished English statesman, and leader of the Tory party, gained 
great distinction also in the field of authorship. Besides some minor 
works, he published the Iliad of Homer, in English Blank Verse. 
Derby's Homer is considered far superior to Pope's, and certainly is 
one of the best, if not the best, ever published. Such a literary 
achievement is the more remarkable, as it was executed amid the 
cares and excitements of political life. 

Douglas Jerrold. 

Douglas Jerrold, 1803-1857, was one of the famous wits of this cen- 
tury. His contributions to the London Punch alone would serve to 
make him famous. No less popular are his comedies. The best 
known among them are Black-eyed Susan and Nell Gwynne. Mrs. 
Caudle's Curtain Lectures and Punch's Complete Letter Writer have 
become proverbial. 

Mrs. Jameson. 

Mrs. Anna Jameson, 1797-1860, has a high reputation as a writer 
on art and literature. Her principal works arei Characteristics of 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 201 

Women, Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns, Lires of the 
Early Italian Painters, The Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art. 
Mrs. Jameson's works exhibit rare powers of insight combined with 
grace of expression ^ and purity of sentiment. Probably no other 
English female writer of her day has been more read and quoted. In 
her Sacred and Legendary Art she has evinced her capacity for anti- 
quarian research, while her Characteristics of Women is "A most 
eloquent and passionate representation of Shakespeare's Women, and 
in many respects is an important contribution to critical literature." 
Whipple. 

IV. WRITERS ON PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 

Sir William Hamilton. 

Sir William Hamilton, 1788-1856, was, at the time of his death, 
the acknowledged leader of English metaphysicians. He was Profes- 
sor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Ham- 
ilton is universally allowed to have been a man of uncommon erudition, 
and of equal clearness in thought and expression. His Lectures on 
Logic and Metaphysics are accepted text-books in many American 
colleges. His original productions appeared chiefly in the shape 
of essays in the Edinburgh Keview. Besides these, he edited, with 
elaborate notes and dissertations, the works of Thomas Keid, and was 
engaged, at the time of his death, in the preparation of a similar edi- 
tion of the works of Dugald Stewart. 

Buckle. 

Henry Thomas Buckle, 1822-1862, acquired great celebrity by his 
work on the History of Civilization. This work, so daring in thought, 
and so beautiful in expression, created at once a profound impression 
wherever the English language was spoken. It was unmistakably infi- 
del in its assumptions ; and it supported them with such a fulness and 
beauty of illustration as to create for a time a feeling of alarm in the 
minds of many. The public were taken with surprise by the wealth of 
learning at his command, and at the same time fascinated by the quiet 
ease and elegance with which these stores of wealth were spread out 
before them. Such was the feeling on the appearance of the first vol- 
ume, in 1857. A second and larger volume came out in 1861, but did 
not create the excitement produced by the first. People had had time 
to recover from the spell thrown over them, and had found that his 
logic was by no means equal to his rhetoric. They could still admire 



202 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

his, style, whicli for philosophical writing has indeed never been ex- 
celled ; and yet could see that his reasoning was unmistakably weak. 
His health failing, Mr, Buckle travelled to the East in the hope of 
recovery, but died at Damascus, in the spring of 1862. His work, if 
carried out to completion on the plan proposed, would have been one 
of colossal proportions. As it is, it is a splendid fragment, which 
must ever command respect, even from those who dissent from the 
conclusions of the author. 

Herbert Spencer. 

Herbert Spencer, 1820 , is one of the most voluminous writers 

of the day on philosophical subjects. He belongs to the same infidel 
school as Buckle, Lecky, and Darwin. He has been a contributor to 
the great English quarterlies, chiefly to the Westminster Review, and 
to some scientific journals, Mr. Spencer may be described in general 
terms as a Darwinist, seeking to ascertain by deduction the physical 
and psychical laws underlying social life, and to make them, instead 
of abstract speculation, the basis of philosophy. According to Mr. 
Spencer's views there is no such thing as metaphysics in the ordinary 
use of that term, no a priori construction of the world of thought out 
of the philosopher's own consciousness, but only a science of human 
life based upon broad and carefully prepared data, and treated like 
other inductive sciences. 

Mr. Spencer's principal works are: Social Statics, The Principles 
of Psychology, Education, First Principles, Principles of Biology, 
Classification of the Sciences, and Universal Progress. 

Leeky. 

Mr. W. E, H. Lecky, , is a philosophical writer of consid- 
erable prominence. His two works are a History of Eationalism in 
Europe, and a History of European Morals from Augustus to Charle- 
magne. 

The Duke of Argyle. 

George John Douglass Campbell, Duke of Argyle, 1823 , is an 

eminent British statesman, orator, and author. The Duke is an ear- 
nest advocate of the principles of the Free Church of Scotland, and he 
look an active part in the proceedings which led to the disruption. He 
publislied Presbytery Examined, giving a review of the ecclesiastical 
history of Scotland since the Eeformation, In the House of Lords he 
acts with the Liberal party, and he is an earnest promoter of science 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 203 

and of popular education. His latest work is a philosophical treatise 
on The Eeign of Law, which has been very favorably received. 

Sir David Brewster. 

Sir David Brewster, LL. D., 1781-1868, a native of Scotland and a 
resident of Edinburgh, was one of the greatest experimental philoso- 
phers of the present century. He edited the Edinbiu-gh Encyclopedia, 
1808-1829, and wrote many of its articles. He contributed also to the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, and to the Xorth British Eeview. His 
papers in the Transactions of various learned societies are very nu- 
merous. Of his separate works, of a more popular character, the fol- 
lowing are the chief : Letters on jSTatural Magic; More Worlds than 
One, the Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian ; 
Lives of Sir Isaac Xewton, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler. 

Whewell. 

William Whewell, D. D., 1795-1886, distinguished himself as a 
writer on a great variety of subjects, though he was mainly known by 
his writings on the natural sciences. The most widely known of his 
works are : Astronomy and General Physics considered in Peference 
to jSTatural Philosophy ; History of the Inductive Sciences ; Philoso- 
phy of the Inductive Sciences ; Elements of Morality ; Plurality of 
Worlds ; History of Moral Philosophy in England. 

Whewell was one of the few men who are equally at home in the 
exact and the historical sciences, and able to do both classes justice 
without allowing the one to override the other. Hence the great 
value and the success of his History of the Inductive Sciences. jSTot- 
withstanding its errors and its occasionally illiberal spirit, it is, together 
with the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, a wonderful effort to 
co-ordinate the scattered and even hostile departments of human 
knowledge. 

Charles Darwin. 

Charles Darwdn, F. E. S., 1809 , the grandson of the poet and 

naturalist Erasmus Darwin, is himself one of the most eminent natu- 
ralists of the day. Mr. Darwin has a singular facility in expressing 
his ideas in language easily understood and in disposing his matter 
for artistic effect. His chief works are : The Variation of Animals 
and Plants under Domestication ; The Origin of Species by Means of 
Natural Selection ; The Descent of Man. His scientific opinions, as 
contained in the works last named, have met with emphatic dissent. 



204 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

But all critics, both friends and foes, have admired the clearness and 
beauty of his style, and the wonderful variety and extent of his 
knowledge. 

O'wen. 

Eichard Owen, D. C. L., 1804 , is the most eminent compara- 
tive anatomist of his age. His written contributions to science are 
immense. Those of his works which are of most general interest 
are : History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds ; On the Arche- 
type and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton ; The Anatomy of 
the Vertebrates. Professor Owen is an opponent of Darwinism, defend- 
ing the mutability of species by virtue of inherent tendencies, and not 
by change of external circumstances. His works, even to the lay 
reader, are fascinating through their vigor and clearness of style. 

Lyell. 

Sir Charles Lyell, 1797 , is one of the most eminent geologists 

of the century. His chief works are: Principles of Geology ; Travels 
in North America ; The Antiquity of Man. Lyell is, in the strictest 
sense of the term, a scientific inquirer ; his method and his aim are 
purely scientific. At the same time, by reason of his pleasing style and 
clear statement, he has been the chief agent in impressing the claims 
of the science upon the attention of the reading public. His earliest 
work and his latest — The Principles of Geology and The Antiquity 
of Man — mark, each of them, a new era in science. Lyell's two 
volumes of Travels are chiefly taken up with scientific details, but are 
also rich in shrewd and just observations upon the society and institu- 
tions of the country whose geological features he is exploring. 

Tyndall. 

John Tyndall, 1820 , is one of the most eminent and best 

known scientists of the present day. He is the author of two interest- 
ing works on Switzerland, entitled The Glaciers of the Alps, and 
Mountaineering in 1861, in which brilliant description of hazardous 
ascensions is skilfully blended with scientific iiiformation. His best 
known works, however, are on Heat as a Mode of Motion, and on 
Sound. Tyndall belongs to that growing class of investigators who 
unite the greatest originality and accuracy of research with the happi- 
est style of composition. His monograph on Heat may be set down 
as marking a new epoch in that department. Professor Tyndall 
visited the United States in 1872 on a lecturing tour. 



TEI^-KTSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 205 

V. HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, ETC. 

^ Maeaulay. 

Thomas Babington Maeaulay, 1800-1859, was in his day the most 
brilliant living writer in England, in matters of historical criticism. 
He excelled, indeed, in almost every style of writing, but it Avas on 
questions of history, and especially on those involving political issues, 
that his supremacy was complete. 

He was educated at the University of Cambridge, and greatly dis- 
tinguished himself while thereby the thoroughness of his scholarship. 
He twice carried off the prize, the Chancellor's Medal, for English 
verse. University honors fell thick about his path, but he left them 
behind and applied himself to the study of the law. While still a 
law student, he published two of his most remarkable productions, the 
Battle of Ivry, at the age of twenty-four, and the Essay on Milton, at 
the age of twenty-five. Either of these was alone sufficient to mark 
him as a man of the first order of genius. The Essay on Milton was 
followed from time to time by similar brilliant articles in the Edin- 
burgh Eeview. 

In 1830, he entered Parliament, and there by his eloquence in de- 
bate, rivalled the fame which he had already acquired as a poet and 
an essayist. His principal speeches were upon the Reform Bill, 1830-32, 
and upon the affairs of the East India Company, 1833. On the latter sub- 
ject, especially, he displayed so much knowledge and ability that he was 
made a minister of the Supreme Council for India, and put at the head of 
the Commission to prepare a new code of laws for the Indian empire. 
He sojourned in India for this purpose from 1835 to 1838, and while 
there acquired that intimate knowledge of the country which appears 
with such wonderful effect in his articles on Clive and Warren Hastings. 

On returning to England, he re-entered Parliament in 1838, and was 
made Secretary at War in the Melbourne ministry. During this period 
of political activity, he produced the Lays of Ancient Rome. 

Being defeated in an election for Parliament, in 1847, he determined 
henceforth to devote himself exclusively to literature, and he began the 
composition of the great historical work, for which all his previous life 
and writings seemed to be a sort of special preparation. This was in- 
tended to be a History of England from the Accession of James 11. down 
to a Time within the Memory of Persons Still Living. The first two 
volumes appeared at the close of 1848. Volumes three and four appeared 
seven years later, in 1855 ; and a fragment of another volume was pub- 
lished after his death, the whole coming down only to the death of Wil- 
liam HI., 1702. 
18 



206 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Macaulay was great in everything which he undertook. He wa8 
among the first in the list of great parliamentary orators, though after 
the order of Burke rather than that of Fox; he is equally among the 
first in the roll of great poets ; while, as an essayist, and a painter of 
historical scenes and personages, he is without a peer. 

The sale of his works, particularly of his History, has been enor- 
mous. His Essays, as they appeared from time to time in the Edin- 
burgh Review, were received with the same sort of excitement which, 
in the early part of the century, used to await the appearance of a new 
fiction by Scott, or a new poem by Byron. His History of England 
rivalled the most sensational novel in the eagerness with which it was 
purchased and read. More than sixty thousand copies of the Essays, 
in 5 vols., were published in Philadelphia alone, within the first five 
years. The aggregate sale of the third and fourth volumes of his 
History, within the first four weeks of their publication, was over one 
hundred and fifty thousand copies. |j 

Grote. 

George Grote, 1794-1871, the historian of Greece, was the finest 
specimen in modern times of a man of business who was at the same 
time in the foremost rank as a scholar and a man of letters. 

Something in Mr. Grote's success in the latter, doubtless, is due to the 
fact that he carried his business habits and solid business sense into 
the investigation of subjects usually monopolized by mere scholars, 
who have no practical experience of affairs. 

He was educated at the Charter-House School, and at the age of six- 
teen entered as a clerk in the banking-house established by his grand- 
father, and in which he himself afterwards became a partner. He 
spent his leisure hours, as a clerk, in patient study, and having early 
formed the purpose of writing the work which has made him famous, 
set about the preparation for it with a degree of courage and delibera- 
tion that border upon the marvellous. Without a University training, 
he bent himself to the task of writing the most difiUcult of all histories, 
the History of Greece. Not being a classical scholar, he applied him- 
self to master not only the Greek language, but whatever related to 
Greek life, history, literature, and philosophy. The History was com- 
pleted in 1856, and filled 12 vols., 8vo. 

Then followed, after many years, his important work on Plato, a 
masterpiece of research, analysis, and scholarship. Here the genius 
of the man of business was, for the first time in the history of specu- 
lation, brought to bear on the noblest and highest of transcendental 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPOE AEIES. 207 

pliilosophers. The work was in 3 vols., and was entitled Plato and 
the Other Companions of Socrates. 

Froude. 

James Anthony Froude, 1818 , has placed himself in the rank 

of distinguished historians. His principal work, a History of Eng- 
land from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth, in 12 vols., 
8vo, is a monument at once of historical research and of literary cul- 
ture. Besides this great work, Mr, Froude has published the Neme- 
sis of Faith ; Short Studies on Great Studies ; and Calvinism, an Ad- 
dress delivered at St. Andrew's University. Mr. Froude visited the 
United States in 1872 on a lecturing tour. 

Merivale. 
Eev. Charles Merivale, 1808 , Fellow of Cambridge, has pub- 
lished an elaborate History of the Romans. The object of this work, 
which is in 7 vols,, 8vo, is to bridge over the interval between the 
point at which Arnold was interrupted, and that at which Gibbon 
began. Mr. Merivale has told this part of the Koman story in a way 
that leaves little to be desired. His work is not a compilation, but 
an original history, the fruit of careful and prolonged investigation. 
If it does not possess the splendor of Gibbon, or the vigorous grasp of 
Arnold, it is yet admirable as a work of art, and worthy to hold a 
place between these two great masters, and to form with them the 
continuous story of Roman affairs. 

Milman. 
Henry Hart Milman, 1791-1868 ; distinguished himself in various 
walks of authorship, but chiefly as an historian. His most important 
historical works are : the History of the Jews ; the well-known anno- 
tated edition of Gibbon's Rome; the History of Christianity from the 
Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Empire ; and the 
History of Latin Christianity down to the Pontificate of Nicolas V. 
The History of Christianity and the History of Latin Christianity 
are justly regarded as standard works. They evince great erudition 
and logical grasp of mind on the part of the historian, and are writ- 
ten in a spirit of Christian liberality. 

Agnes Strickland. 

Agnes Strickland, 1806 , is entitled to an honored place in the 

gallery of distinguished historical writers. 



208 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Her principal works are : the Queens of England, the Queens of 
Scotland, and the Lives of the Bachelor Kings of England. In most 
of these works she received much assistance from her sister Elizabeth, 
who refused however to have her name put on the title-page. The 
materials were collected by means of careful researches in the British 
Museum and other great public libraries. Her volumes afford an 
agreeable reading for the lover of history, and contain many minutiae 
of royal domestic life not to be found in more ambitious and more 
philosophical works. 

Kinglake. 

Alexander William Kinglake, 1811-1870, was chiefly known by 
his history of the Invasion of the Crimea. His first work was Eothen, 
a collection of sketches of Eastern travel, which has been pronounced 
to be the most fascinating work of the kind ever written. He accom- 
panied the Crimean expedition, and commenced a detailed account of 
the campaign under the title. The Invasion of the Crimea, of which 
two volumes have appeared. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Lord 
Raglan, and the work has therefore somewhat of a partisan character. 
But the vivid and detailed description which it gives of the campaign, 
and its merciless exposure of the conduct of Louis Napoleon, in con- 
nection with its clear and vigorous style, place the w^rk in the fore- 
most rank of contributions to special history. 

Arthur Helps, 1818 , is favorably known both as an histo- 
rian and as a writer of miscellanies. His best known works are 
Friends in Council, a History of the Spanish Conquest, and a Life 
of Columbus. Helps is a thoroughly earnest writer and a diligent 
investigator, but his style lacks something of the dignity and finish of 
the classical historian. 



VI. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 

John Henry Newman. 

The Very Eev. John Henry Newman, D. D., 1801 — -, is an ac- 
knowledged leader among the great English theologians of the present 
day. His eminent abilities as a thinker and a writer are recognized 
equally by those who dissent from his opinions and those who agree 
with him. 

He was associated with Keble and other Oxford scholars, in the 
movement which led to the publication of the Tracts for the Times, 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPOR A KIES. 209 
'tan 

and was one of those wlio went over to the Church of Rome. After 
his conversion, he wrote several works in vindication of his new opin- 
ions. The most important of these are Loss and Gain, a religious tale, 
relating the conversion of an Anglican to the Catholic faith, Lectures 
on Anglican Difficulties, Lectures on the Position of Catholics in Eng- 
land, Apologia pro Vita Sua, containing the history of his religious 
opinions, and An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, a work treat- 
ing of fundamental principles of Christian belief. 

As a writer of the mother tongue, Dr. Newman is, perhaps, unsur- 
passed for ease and grace of expression, and for general purity of style. 
He is said to be kindly in his manners, intuitively discreet in his 
intercourse with others, warm in his friendships, though an ascetic in 
temperament. 

Cardinal Wiseman. 

The Most Eev. Nicholas Wiseman, D.D., 1802-1865, the leading 
English Catholic at the time of his death, was very eminent as a 
scholar and a writer. His writings are numerous, and are held in 
high estimation. The following are his principal works : Lectures on 
the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion ; The Real 
Presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the 
Blessed Eucharist ; Lectures on the Principal Doctrines and Practices 
of the Catholic Church. Besides his theological works, and his 
numerous controversial pamphlets, he published many occasional lec- 
tures and essays on subjects connected with literature and art. These 
lectures and essays showed broad views and generous culture, and 
gained for the author a lasting place in the respect of his countrymen 
outside of his own communion. He writes with a singular grace and 
elegance, and his thoughts are often strikingly beautiful. 

Archbishop Manning. 

The Most Rev. Henry Edward Manning, D. D., 1808 , who 

succeeded Cardinal Wiseman as Archbishop of Westminster, has writ- 
ten many works, chiefly theological, which give him a high place 
among authors. Those of most note are the Temporal Mission of the 
Holy Ghost, and two correlated works, the Four Chief Evils of the 
Day, and the Fourfold Sovereignty of God. 

Pusey. 

Edward Bouverie Pusey, D. D., 1800 , Regius Professor of 

Hebrew in the University of Oxford, is well known as one of the ablest 
18* O 



210 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

and most voluminous writers in tlie English Church at the present day, 
and one of the founders of a school of theology that goes by his name. 
Dr. Pusey first came prominently before the public as the author, 
jointly with Newman, Keble, and others, of a series of pamphlets and 
volumes, begun in 1833, called Tracts for the Times. Seldom, in the 
history of opinion, has such an influence been produced by the force of 
mere discussion and argument, as that produced by the patient and 
persistent labors of these recluse and quiet scholars, in the preparation 
of this series of Tracts. In addition to his share in this work, Dr. 
Pusey has written a large number of other works on the same or kin- 
dred subjects. The following are a few : Scriptural Views of Holy 
Baptism ; The Eeal Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ the 
Doctrine of the English Church ; Eirenicon, or The Church of Eng- 
land a Portion of Christ's One Holy Catholic Church. For one of his 
sermons, entitled The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to the Penitent, 
Dr. Pusey was suspended from preaching from 1843 to 1846. 

Bishop Colenso. 

John W. Colenso, D. D., 1814 , a clergyman of the English 

Church and Bishop of Natal, in South Africa, became very notorious 
by the publication of several volumes impugning the inspiration and 
the historical accuracy of several of the books of the Bible. His prin- 
cipal work was The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically 
Examined. 

Professor Seeley, 

John Eobert Seeley, , Professor of Modern History in 

Cambridge, has won great distinction by his work, Ecce Homo. In 
this work, which is one of singular beauty and elegance. Prof. Seeley 
has endeavored to show, more fully than had ever before been done? 
the human side of our Lord's character. The studied silence of the 
book in regard to our Lord's divine character, leaving it in doubt 
whether the writer really believed Him to be divine, has caused most 
Christians, both in England and America, to look with disfavor upon 
the work, notwithstanding the extraordinary fascinations of its style. 



F. W. Robertson. 

Eev. Frederick W. Kobertson, 1816-1853, is one of the few clergy- 
men who have made a strong impression on the general mind by the 
publication of Sermons. Sermons in the pulpit form no inconsiderable 



TENNYSOK AKD HIS CONTEMPOE ARIES . 211 

part of the mental food of the community. But they are usually 
a drug when published, as every bookseller knows. Eobertson's Ser- 
mons are an exception. There is in them a freshness of thought and 
of expression that have given them a place in popular literature. 

V/hately. 

Richard Whately, D. D., 1787-1863, was educated at Oxford ; took 
orders in the English Church, and rose to great distinction, occupying 
various important posts, among them the Bishopric of Kildare, and 
the Archbishopric of Dublin. Whately's literary productions are so 
numerous and so diversified that it would be impossible to cite in this 
place even a bare list of them. His earliest published production was 
the well-known work entitled Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon 
Bonaparte. It was an instance of what the logicians call reductio ad 
absurdum, that is, the young churchman attempted to show that the 
principles of reasoning employed by infidels against the New Testa- 
ment might be made to prove that such a man as Napoleon never 
existed. The work attracted much attention at the time, and was 
translated into several continental languages. His two best known 
works are his treatises on Logic and Rhetoric. 

Faber. 

George Stanley Faber, 1773-1854, was one of the most learned and 
prolific writers that the English Church has produced in recent times. 
His writings are exceedingly numerous, and are all such as mark accu- 
rate scholarship and unusual mental vigor. The following are the 
titles of a few : Dissertation on the Prophecies relating to the Papal 
and Mohammedan Apostasies, The Origin of Papal Idolatry, The Dif- 
ficulties of .Infidelity, The Difiiculties of Romanism. His separate 
works number forty-two, and run through a period of fifty-five years 
of active authorship. 

Home. 

Thomas Hartwell Home, D. D., 1780-1862, is known among bibli- 
cal students everywhere by his Introduction to the Study of the Scrip- 
tures. This work, published originally in 3 vols., large 8vo, and 
gradually increased in successive editions to 5 vols., became the ac- 
knowledged text-book on the subject iu nearly all institutions of 
theological learning, both in England and America. It has passed 
through a greater number of editions, probably, than any other work 
of like erudition and extent. 



212 ENGLISH LITEKATUEE. 

Trench. 

Eichard Chevenlx Trench, D. J)., 1807 , Archbishop of Dublin, 

has gained great celebrity by his various popular essays on the study 
of English ; he is also a voluminous writer on theological subjects. 

The most prominent of his homiletic works are Notes on the Par- 
ables of Our Lord, and Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord. He be- 
longs to the moderate Evangelical party in the Church of England, 
and is one of the great leaders of sound Christian thought in that 
country. 

By his essay On the Study of Words, and by his English Past and 
Present, he has done more than any other writer before Max Miiller, 
to awaken and sustain an interest in the popular mind for the study 
of the mother tongue. These works do not profess to be strictly sci- 
entific, and some of the author's views require modification or correc- 
tion. But they have the great merit of being perfectly adapted to the 
reader of general culture, and of urging most happily the claims of 
a hitherto neglected study. Few books are more interesting and 
profitable for the young college student. 

Alford. 

Henry Alford, D. D,, 1810-1871, Dean of Canterbury, is the author 
of several important works, literary and theological. The most elab- 
orate and scholarly of his works is his Edition of the New Testament, 
in 4 vols. One of his best known works is a small volume called The 
Queen's English. This was intended to expose some of the common 
corruptions of the English tongue by careless writers and speakers. It 
owes its chief celebrity, however, to the merciless severity with which 
its own bad English was criticised by Mr. Moon in his work, The 
Dean's English. 



VII. MISCELLANEOUS. 

The Ho^^^itts. 

William and Mary Howitt, with their sons and daughters, and some 
other members of the family, seem to form a group by themselves. 
Their writings and their doings have for some reason always been of 
special interest to Americans. 

William Howitt, 1792 , was born of Quaker parentage, in 

Heanor, Derbyshire. His ancestors on both sides had lived for many 
generations in the same neighborhood. The pastoral and old world 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 213 

character of the district made a deep inipression upon his boyish 
imagination, and have stamped themselves with a quaint individuality 
upon numerous pages of his writings. His principal works are the 
following : Book of the Seasons ; The Rural Life of England ; The 
Boy's Country Book ; Homes and Haunts of the Poets ; History of 
the Supernatural. 

Mary Howitt, 1800 , originally Mary Botham, was married to 

Mr. Howitt in 1821. She was born among the iron forges of the Forest 
of Dean, in Gloucestershire, although her childhood and youth, until 
her marriage, were spent at the pleasantly situated little town of Utt- 
oxeter, in Staffordshire. Her works have been mostly for the young. 
The following are a few of those best known : Tales in Prose and 
Verse ; Hymns and Fireside Verses ; Birds and their Nests ; Birds 
and Flowers ; Tales for the People and their Children. 

Robert and William Chambers. 

Eobert Chambers, 1802-1871, and William Chambers, 1800 , 

authors and publishers, of Edinburgh, are known and honored wher- 
ever English books are read, or the English language is spoken. 

By their sagacity and enterprise, these brothers have unaided accom- 
plished what the vast and unwieldy Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
Knowledge undertook, — they have made knowledge cheap in Great 
Britain, and they have diffused it as no other agency before ever did 
in that country. They began as booksellers, and, combining author- 
ship with trade to an extent not usual, have had a wonderful success. 
Both in what they have written and in what they have published, 
their object has been to present those subjects which were of interest 
to the greatest number of readers, to make them attractive in style and 
form and easily understood, and at such a low rate of cost as to secure 
a large circulation. The idea, of course, has no novelty. Many have 
thought and tried the same thing. The peculiarity in the work of 
these men has been the sagacity and sound judgment which have 
marked all their enterprises. 

They began in 1832 the Edinburgh (weekly) Journal, which was 
their first great success. It obtained almost immediately a circulation 
of 50,000, which was increased afterwards to 90,000. This was fol- 
lowed by The People's Edition of Standard English Authors ; Cham- 
bers's Miscellany; Chambers's Educational Course; Papers for the 
People, etc. Then came the Encyclopaedia of English Literature; 
Encyclopaedia for the People ; Information for the People ; the Book 
of Pays, etc. 



214 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The sales of these various publications have been enormous. In 
connection with this, it should be said that the works which they have 
thus spread so widely are of a kind to do good. There is not probably 
a line in all that they have sent forth to the world which a good man 
would desire to expunge, while the manifest tendency of it all has 
been to elevate the moral and intellectual character of the readers. 

Crabb Robinson. 

Henry Crabb Eobinson, 1775-1867, is known almost exclusively by 
his memoirs, published after his death, under the title, Henry Crabb 
Kobinson's Diary, Eeminiscences, and Correspondence. This work is 
one of the most interesting in the English language, for it is nothing 
less than a personal record of men and things, kept by one who was 
for seventy years intimately associated with the leading men and 
women of England, France, and Germany. 

His Diary has no especial merits of style. It is a plain straight- 
forward narrative, interspersed with bits of criticism or reflection. 
The great charm of the work consists in its simplicity approaching 
almost to n?avete, and its value consists in the picture which it pre- 
sents of the growth of English society and letters. He who wishes to 
have a continuous, life-like presentment of the entire nineteenth cen- 
tury up to 1865, cannot do better than read this stupendous record, for 
such it really is. Not to every man is it given to live to the age of 
fourscore and ten with unimpaired faculties, mingling with the wisest 
and wittiest of three generations, and embodying the most pleasant 
experiences in an unbroken narrative. 

Richardson. 

Charles Eichardson, LL.D., 1775-1865, is well known as the author 
of a jSTew Dictionary of the English Language. This work of Eich- 
ardson is altogether unique. The other Dictionaries that we have are 
built up by accretion one upon another, or have been developed one 
from another — Webster from Johnson, Johnson from Bailey, and so 
on, going back to Edward Philips's little book. The New World of 
Words. But Eichardson struck out boldly into a new path. He 
adopted as a cardinal principle the dictum of Home Tooke, that each 
word has inherently but one meaning, and this one primary meaning 
must first be ascertained, not by arbitrary conjecture, but by etymo- 
logical and historical research ; and that all the secondary and de- 
rived meanings should be subordinated to it, and be shown to spring 
from it, in historical and logical order. Another feature of his work, 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 215 

equally prominent, is his accumulation of quotations under each word 
or family of words, showing its use in successive periods, giving in fact 
the materials for a history of the word. 

Richardson's work is so incomplete that it can never supply the 
place of a dictionary for general use. Yet it is so rich in materials 
that no literary or professional man can well do without it. The car- 
dinal principles upon which it is based are the true foundations of the 
science of lexicography, and if ever a general and comprehensive 
English dictionary shall be framed, in which these principles shall be 
fully carried out, it will constitute an era in English lexicography. 

Smith's Dictionaries. 

William Smith, LL.D,, 1814 , is known to all scholars by his 

Classical and Bible Dictionaries. He is perhaps the most widely known 
of all English classical scholars of the present day. Those who have 
been benefited by his labors may be counted by hundreds of thousands. 
His most celebrated works are the Dictionary of Greek and Roman 
Antiquities, the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and 
Mythology, and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. 
These six large volumes, in the latest edition, constitute the most 
valuable contribution ever made in English to the classical student's 
working-library, and completely supersede all other works of the kind. 
Next in importance to these is Smith's Latin-English Dictionary, an 
admirable work, based upon those of Freund and Forcellini. Smith's 
Dictionary of the Bible, in three volumes, stands also at the head of 
works of its kind, covering the entire ground of biblical lore. The 
mere list of works of such magnitude and excellence is enough to fill 
the lover of sound learning with admiration of the editor, who has 
displayed in them the greatest zeal, and also the greatest skill in avail- ■ 
ing himself of the resources of his numerous contributors and coad- 
jutors. 

Russell the Times Correspondent. 

William Howard Russell, LL.D., 1821 , has acquired great 

celebrity as Special Correspondent of the London Times. 

His name is the representative of a certain conspicuous phase of 
modern journalism. Although not the earliest, he is the chief of the 
now numerous and powerful class of special war correspondents. 

During the Crimean war he was sent out by the London Times as 
their special correspondent, and such were his credentials that he was 
placed on intimate terms with the leading English officers, and en- 



216 ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

abled to collect the materials for that series of brilliant letters which 
established his fame. These letters were by no means stinted in their 
denunciations of mismanagement, and were among the prime agents 
in opening the eyes of the public to the defects of the army organiza- 
tion, and paving the way to reform. 

At the breaking out of the Civil War in America, he was again 
sent out as special correspondent, and followed the Northern army 
through their disastrous campaigns until the summer of 1862. In 
1866, he accompanied the Austrian army in its disastrous Sadowa 
campaign, and more recently he went with the Prussians in tlieir vic- 
torious march from the Ehine to Paris. 

Eussell is the prince of Special Correspondents, He possesses the 
happy faculty of seizing the essential features of a campaign, a battle, 
a skirmish, or a journey, and presenting them in a clear and vigorous 
style. A man of culture and education, he writes to please men of 
like tastes with himself. Hence his freedom from anything like bom- 
hast or exaggeration. On the other hand, his views and his way of 
looking at things are essentially narrow, not to say unjust. He car- 
ries with him, wherever he may go,, the atmosphere of England. This 
will explain his many blunders in the United States and his evident 
incapacity to take a broad and rational view of the great civil contro- 
versy. No one can surpass him, however, in the power of dashing 
off currente calmno a vivid arid accurate description of a battle in time 
for the first mail home. This ability to furnish the very latest news 
fresh from the spot and in a pleasing form, has revolutionized the de- 
partment of newspaper-correspondence and called forth a host of imi- 
tators. 

The London Times. 

The Times, of London, is the largest and most influential newspaper 
in the world. 

This paper was founded in 1785, under the title of The Daily Uni- 
versal Eegister, which was changed in 1788 to its present title The 
Times. The founder and proprietor was John Waiter, a printer. It 
had no extraordinary merit or success until 1803, when John Walter, 
Jr., son of the preceding, became joint proprietor and sole manager. 
Mr. Walter was for many years editor as well as manager. The most 
conspicuous features in his management were enterprise in getting the 
latest news, and fearlessness in expressing opinion. The London 
Times is one of the marvels of modern civilization. This newspaper, 
in its issues for a single month, possibly in a single issue, contains 
more that is of value, for literary ability, and for the amount and 



TENNYSON AND HIS CONTEMPOR AEIES. 217 

variety of knowledge conveyed, than all that was ever written in the 
language from the earliest ages down to the time of Chaucer. 

Other Journals. 

The Times is only a type of a class. It is now rivalled, in some 
respects eclipsed, by a considerable number of journals in the metrop- 
olis, and it is almost equalled by a large number in other parts of 
the kingdom. 

The Weeklies. 

In mere literary ability, and simply as organs for the expression of 
opinion, without reference to the item of news, all these great dailies 
are now distanced by the Weeklies, of which a conspicuous example 
is The Saturday Review. 
19 





Part II. 

American Literature. 



3j#<t 



INTRODUCTION. 

American Literature is that part of English Literature which 
has been produced upon American soil. 

American Literature dates from the first settlement of the Ameri- 
can Colonies. 

Nearly all the leaders in these enterprises were men of education, 
graduates of the English Universities. They came to the New World 
quite as much in defence of opinions as in quest of fortune. The pen 
and the printing-press shared from the first with the musket, the axe, 
and the plough, in the work which the early American colonists set 
before them. 

CHAPTER I. 



The Early Colonial Period. 

(1608-1760.) 

The first period of this literature is distinctly marked. It includes 
all that was produced in the Colonies down to the time when the 
political ferment began which ended in the separation from the 
mother country. 

The works of this period, though from the first racy of the soil, are 
yet not so distinctly American as those produced afterwards. Those 

219 



220 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

early colonists were still Englishmen at heart, and most of what they 
wrote saw the light first in England. The types, the printing-presses, 
the paper were still mostly there ; the audience to which they ap- 
pealed was quite as much English as American. 

The first works in English written on American soil came from 
Virginia. 

Whitaker's Good Ne^^ves. 

Good Newes from Virginia, published in 1613, was the work of 
Alexander Whitaker, one of the settlers of the town of Henrico, on 
the James Kiver. 

Whitaker was of good English family, his father being the distin- 
guished theologian, Dr. William Whitaker, Master of St. John's Col- 
lege, Cambridge. Young Whitaker came to America in a truly mis- 
sionary spirit, and engaged earnestly in his vocation as a Christian 
minister. It was he who baptized Pocahontas, and who also married 
her to Eolfe. 

Sandys's Ovid. 

The first purely literary work produced on American soil was the 
Translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, by George Sandys, in 1621. 
Sandys was, at the time. Treasurer to the Virginia Colony, and the 
work referred to was penned on the banks of the James River. San- 
dys's poem was held in high respect by Dryden and Pope. Dryden 
pronounced him the best versifier of his age. 

Vaughan's Golden Fleece. 

Another work written about the same time, but in a remote north- 
eastern settlement, was The Golden Fleece, by Sir William Vaughan. 
This work was a small quarto, partly in prose and partly in verse, 
humorous and satirical, intended to set forth the general degeneracy 
of manners in England and the advantages of emigrating to America. 
It was written at Cambrioll, the author's plantation in the southern 
part of Newfoundland, and was sent to London for publication, with 
a view of inducing other settlers to join him. 

Wood's New England's Prospect. 

New England's Prospect was the title of a descriptive work by 
William Wood, and was printed in London in 1634. Wood was a 
resident of the Plymouth Colony. After spending four years there, 
he went to London and published the work just'named. The work is 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 221 

written in a cheerful strain, and some parts of it are in verse, in the 
common heroic couplet. 

The First Printing-Press. 

The first printing-press in America was at Harvard College, Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts. It was set up in the President's house, in 1639. 

The First Printed Book. 

The first book printed in the American Colonies was the celebrated 
Bay Psalm Book, Cambridge, 1640. Some small pamphlets had ap- 
peared before, as the Freeman's Oath, and an Almanac, but the Bay 
Psalm Book was the first hook issued. 

The Bay Psalm Book. 

The men who were chiefly engaged in preparing the Bay Psalm 
Book, were the Eev. Kichard Mather, of Dorchester, the Eev. John 
Eliot, of Eoxbury, of world-wide celebrity as the '' apostle to the In- 
dians," and the Eev. Thomas Welde, also of Eoxbury. The work 
was committed a few years later to the Eev. Henry Dunster, the first 
President of Harvard College, to be revised. Thus revised, the book 
found its way into general use. It was adopted and used almost ex- 
clusively in all the New England colonies, down nearly to the period 
of the Eevolution. 

John Cotton. 

Eev. John Cotton, 1585-1652, is known by his Milk for Babes, Meat 
for Strong Men, and sundry other publications suited to the times. 
Milk for Babes was a catechism for instructing young children in the 
elements of Christian doctrine. The piece, though small, was of great 
influence and importance. It was one of the documents which com- 
posed the famous New England Primer, and as such was for many 
generations stored in the memory of almost every New England child. 

Thomas Shepard. 

Eev. Thomas Shepard, 1605-1649, was one of the shining lights of 
the Massachusetts Colony. His best known work is The Parable of 
the Ten Virgins Opened. Out of one hundred and thirty-two quota- 
tions which President Edwards makes from various authors, in his 
Work on the Aflections, more than seventy-five are from Mr. Shepard. 
19* 



222 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Roger Williams. 

Koger Williams, 1606-1683, famous as the apostle of civil and re- 
ligious liberty, and as the founder of a State established on that prin- 
ciple, is favorably known also by his writings, especially by his Bloody 
Tenent of Persecution. In 1636 he laid the foundations of the city 
of Providence, in which men of all creeds might enjoy full religious 
liberty ; and going to England, he obtained a charter for the Province 
of Phode Island, of which he was himself afterwards President. The 
main feature of his system was the doctrine that the State ought not to 
punish for breaches of the first table of the law. In this he was in 
advance of all his contemporaries, being the first bold advocate of entire 
and absolute toleration in matters of religion. 

John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. 

John Eliot, 1604-1690, distinctively known in colonial annals as 
the Apostle to the Indians, has a place in literature by numerous re- 
ligious works written in English, but chiefly by his translation of the 
Scriptures into the Indian tongue. He was also one of the three min- 
isters who prepared the Bay Psalm Book. 

Eliot's Indian Bible was printed in 1658-1663, on the press which 
had been set up in the President's house at Cambridge in 1639, and 
was the first Bible printed in the New World. 

Richard Mather. 

Richard Mather, 1596-1669, eminent as a religious leader in the 
infant settlement, published several controversial treatises, and was one* 
of the three ministers who prepared the famous Bay Psalm Book. 

Increase Mather. 

Increase Mather, D. D., 1639-1723, one of the most promment fig- 
ures in the early history of Massachusetts, was the autlior of a large 
number of' works, among which may particularly be named that on 
Remarkable Providences, and a History of the Wars with the Indians. 

He was for sixteen years President of Harvard, and he exerted a 
commanding influence both in Church and State. Though mingling 
much in afiairs, he was indefatigable as a student, passing two-thirds 
of the day among his books, and he left behind him no less than eighty- 
five publications, mostly religious and theological. 



THE EARLY COLOXIAL PERIOD. -223 

Cotton Mather. 

Cotton Mather, D. D., 1663-1728, the greatest of the famous Mather 
family, is also in some respects the most conspicuous figure in the 
early history of Xew England ; and the Magnalia Christi Americana is, 
on the -^hole, the greatest, and the best known, of his almost intermi- 
nable list of works. 

If there is anything in blood and breeding, Cotton Mather would 
seem to have had an hereditary right to be, as in fact he was, a theologian 
and a scholar. His father. Dr. Increase Mather, was a man of books, 
spending usually two-thirds of the day in his library. The grandfather, 
old Bichard Mather, likewise was a man of mark for his scholarly 
habits and attainments. The same is true, but in a still higher degree, 
of the grandfather on the mother's side, the "great John Cotton" of 
the infant colony. 

The list of Cotton Mather's printed works, given by his son Samuel, 
numbers three hundred and eighty-two. Even this is not complete, 
several of his publications having been brought to light afterwards. 
Many of these, of course, were only tracts, or occasional sermons. But 
a large number of them were elaborate and stately volumes. 

His greatest work, Afagnalia Christi Americana, purports to be an 
ecclesiastical history of New England, from its first planting in 1620 
to the year 1698, but includes also civil history, an account of Harvard 
College, of tlie Indian wars, and the witchcraft troubles, and a large 
number of biographies. Xew England's worthies are indeed largely 
indebted for their perpetuity of fame to the embalming influence of 
Cotton Mather's genius and kindness of heart. These pen-portraits 
of his contemporaries are now among the most precious of all his 
writings. 

After the Magnalia, Mather's next most important works are Mem- 
orable Providences relating to Witchcraft ; and The Wonders of the 
Invisible World, being an Account of the Trial of Several Witches. 

Anne Bradstreet. 

Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, 1612-1672, daughter of one and wife of 
another Governor of Massachusetts, published in 1640 a volume of 
poems which were for the time in high repute, and won for her in 
England the title of the Tenth Muse. Mrs. Bradstreet worthily stands 
at the head of the women writers of America. One of her descendants 
is Richard H. Dana, the well-known author. 



224 , AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

President Blair. 

James Blair, D. D., 1656-1743, the first President of William and 
Mary College, Virginia, published in 1722 an extended work with the 
title, Our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount. 

It was mainly by Blair's continued and persistent efforts that the col- 
lege of William and Mary was established and put on a permanent 
footing. He was named as President in the charter itself, and held 
the office until his death. He was Commissary of the Bishop of Lon- 
don for Virginia and Maryland, and in virtue of this office was a mem- 
ber of the Council of State. He was a clergyman over sixty years, 
Commissary fifty-four years, and President fifty years. He was buried 
in the churchyard at Jamestown. 

Col. William Byrd. 

William Byrd, 1674^1744, a wealthy and accomplished Virginia 
gentleman, was the author of a number of narratives and descriptive 
pieces known as The Westover Manuscripts. 

These important documents remained in manuscript until 1841 
when they were printed by Edward Kuffin of Petersburg, under the 
title of The Westover Manuscripts, being so called from the estate of 
Westover, on the north branch of the James River, where the author 
lived. 

James Logan. 

James Logan, 1674-1751, a man of note in the early settlement of 
Pennsylvania, was the founder of the Loganian Library in Philadel- 
phia, and the author of several valuable works, both literary and sci- 
entific. Logan was a member of the Society of Friends, and came to 
America as Secretary to William Penn, on the occasion of the second 
visit of the latter to his province. 

Thomas Chalkley. 
Thomas Chalkley, 1675-1749, another eminent Friend, was the 
author of a series of religious Tracts, and of a Journal containing an 
account of his experiences as an itinerant preacher. Chalkley was 
born in London. Coming to America, he made Philadelphia his 
headquarters, but spent the greater part of his life in travelling 
through New England, the Southern States, the West Indies, and 
elsewhere, as a voluntary missionary, preaching the gospel. His writ- 
ings are remarkable for their unpretending simplicity, and often for 
an unafiected pathos and beauty. 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 225 

John Woolman. 
John Woolman, 1720-1772, a native- of New Jersey, and a noted 
preacher among the Friends, is favorably known in letters by his 
Essays and Epistles, but more particularly by his Journal. Tliis has 
lately been republished, being edited with pious and loving care by 
the poet Whittier. Charles Lamb says, in one of the Essays of Elia, 
" Get the writings of John Woolman by heart, and learn to love the 
early Quakers." 

Cad^A^allader Golden. 

Cadwallader Golden, M. D., 1681-1776, was the earliest author of 
note in the city of New York, of those at least who wrote in English. 
Colden's chief work was a History of the Five Indian Nations, which 
has been several times reprinted, both in England and America. He 
wrote also a philosophical treatise, On the Principles of Action in 
Matter, and numerous scientific papers. He was much devoted to 
Botany, and was a correspondent of Linnaeus, Bufibn, and other emi- 
nent scientists. He took an active part in the formation of the Ameri- 
can Philosophical Society. 

Samuel Johnson. 

Samuel Johnson, D. D., 1696-1722, is considered the father of 
Episcopacy in Connecticut. He was a man of distinguished attain- 
ments and ability, and upon the establishment of King's (now Colum- 
bia) College, New York, he was chosen President, — but retired finally 
to his original charge in Stratford, Ct. He published several works, 
among them A System of Morality and various controversial tracts in 
favor of Episcopacy. / 

President Clap. 

Eev. Thomas Clap, 1703-1767, one of the early Presidents of Yale 
College, eminent for his attainments in science and letters, was the 
author of several valuable works. Among these are an Essay on the 
Keligious Condition of Colleges ; a Vindication of the Doctrines of 
New England Churches ; an Essay on the Nature and Foundation of 
Moral Virtue and Obligation ; and a History of Yale College. 

President Dickinson. 
Eev. Jonathan Dickinson, 1688-1747, first President of the College 
of New Jersey, was an eloquent preacher and a writer of acknowledged 
ability. He published many sermons and theological treatises, and a 
volume of Familiar Letters upon Important Subjects in Religion. 



226 



AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



President Burr. 

Aaron Burr, 1716-1757, second President of the College of New 
Jersey, was a man of no little note as a writer. His chief publication 
was a Treatise on the Supreme Deity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

He was a son-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, and father of the Aaron 
Burr who figured so largely in political affairs. 

President Edwards. 

Eev. Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, third President of the College 
of New Jersey, is considered the greatest metaphysician that America 
has produced, and one of the greatest that has ever lived. His works 
are numerous and varied, but that by which he is most known is his 
essay on the Freedom of the Will. 

His other works are exceedingly numerous, and several of them 
are second in value and importance only to that on the Will. Those 
with which the public are most familiar are : The Eeligious Affec- 
tions; The History of Redemption ; and The End for which God 
Created the World. y j. 

President Davies. 

Rev. Samuel Davies, 1723-1761, fourth President of the College of 
New Jersey, was in his day the most famous preacher in America. 

The traditions in regard to the power of President Davies as a pul- 
pit orator fully equal those in regard to the popular and forensic elo- 
quence of Patrick Henry. Davies's Sermons are to this day among 
the most popular to be found in that class of literature. Davies was 
the author also of a number of excellent Hymns, some of which hold 
their place in the hymnals of the present day. 





CHAPTER II. 

The Revolutionary Period. 

(1760-1800.) 

The political ferment wliich ended in the war for independence 
and the establishment of a separate nationality gave a peculiar type 
to the literature of the time. The agitation spoken of began as early 
as 1760, and did not end before the close of the century. This period, 
therefore, from 1760 to 1800, forms the limits of our Second Chapter. 

The battle of the Eevolution was fought by the pen as well as by 
the sword. The leaders in the fight against the mother country had 
not only to argue their case before the tribunal of the world, but to 
educate their own countrymen up to the point of armed resistance, 
and to hold them there during a long and gloomy contest. After the 
war was over, there was the not less grave and difficult task of guiding 
the opinions of the nation and of moulding the political elements into 
form and symmetry. 

In the accomplishment of this great and varied work, the political 
writers of the period used freely almost every variety of style that 
could be made available for the purpose. They made grave and formal 
argument ; they employed also warm and patriotic appeal. The phi- 
lippics of Patrick Henry, Otis, and the elder Adams were ably seconded 
by wit and song from Freneau, Bracken ridge, and Hopkinson. They 
roused their own side by patriotic ballads, they stung the enemy with 
squibs. The wit of the revolutionary period, though not perhaps of 
a very high order of literature, was yet no insignificant part of the 
moral force by which the war of independence was brought to a suc- 
cessful termination. 

227 



228 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Benjamin Franklin. 

Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, may be viewed under three aspects, 
— as a sage, a statesman, and a man of science; in each aspect, 
he stands among the first men of all time. His writings, which 
are numerous, filling 10 octavo volumes, consist: 1. Of his Autobiog- 
raphy and of Essays on Moral and Eeligious Subjects and the Economy 
of Life ; 2. Of Essays on Politics, Commerce, and Political Economy ; 
3. Of Papers on Electricity and other Scientific and Philosophical 
Subjects. Among the most noted of his publications was an annual 
almanac, purporting to be written by Eichard Saunders, and com- 
monly known as Poor Eichard's Almanac. It contained, besides the 
matters customary in such publications, a series of pithy sayings in 
regard to economy and thrift and the minor morals of life. The Alma- 
nac was exceedingly popular, and was continued for twenty-six years. 
Some of the best things that Franklin ever wrote, and that have since 
become proverbs among all English-speaking people, appeared first 
in this Almanac. 

George Washington. 

George Washington, 1732-1799, was so immeasurably great in other 
respects, that it seems almost a profanation to speak of him as a 
writer. Yet his writings fill twelve octavo volumes, and are a valu- 
able part of the political literature of the time. Most of Washington's 
writings are ofiicial papers. Some are diaries or journals, some are 
agricultural essays, yet all are distinctly Washingtonian. He had 
formed for himself a style, the unconscious outgrowth of his character, 
which is as distinctly marked as his handwriting. Even in his Fare- 
well Address, in which he invited the co-operation of Madison, Ham- 
ilton, and Jay, the document, in its final form, gives unmistakable 
evidence of the moulding hand of its original author. "It is unlike 
any composition of Madison or Hamilton, in a certain considerate 
moral tone which distinguished all Washington's writings. It is 
stamped by the position, the character, the very turns of phrase of the 
great man who gave it to his country." — Duyckinck. 



The Elder Adams. 

John Adams, 1735-1826, one of the originators and leaders of the 
American Eevolution, and the second President of the United States, 
was a political writer of great ability, and by his writings contributed 
largely to the success of the American cause. His writings have been 
collected and edited by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, in 10 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 229 

vols., 8vo. His Letters to his Wife have also been published in 2 
vols. 

Thomas Jefferson. 

Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, third President of the United States, 
in additio"n to all his other merits, won for himself an imperishable 
name, as the author of the Declaration of Independence. His other 
writings are numerous and fill many volumes. Those best known are 
his Notes on the State of Virginia, and his Manual of Parliamentary 
Practice.. Jefferson made no pretensions to oratory, and seldom en- 
gaged in debate. But as a skilful writer, he had no superior among 
his contemporaries and associates. Some of his messages are models 
of political eloc[uence. 

James Madison. 

James Madison, 1751-1836, fourth President of the United States, 
contributed to the political literature of the country two works of 
great importance, namely, a considerable portion of the Federalist, 
and a Keport of the Debates of the Convention which framed the 
Constitution. 

His political writings are second only to those of Hamilton in abil- 
ity and influence. His style has not the intense nervous energy of 
Jefferson's, but his argumentation is considered sounder. 

Alexander Hamilton. 

Alexander Hamilton, 1757-1804, was the ablest of all the political 
writers of the Kevolution. The Federalist, which was mainly his 
work, is not only an important national treasure, but an enduring 
monument of intellectual apd literary greatness. 

Hamilton's fame as a writer and thinker rests chiefly upon his con- 
tributions to the Federalist. Out of the eighty-five essays contained 
therein, fifty-one are by him, twenty-nine by James Madison, five by 
John Jay. These essays appeared in the interval between the publi- 
cation and the adoption of the Constitution, and were designed to ex- 
plain its merits to the people at large. Hamilton's contributions are 
easily distinguished from the others " by their superior comprehensive- 
ness, practicalness, originality, and condensed and polished diction." 

John Jay. 

John Jay, 1745-1829, another conspicuous political writer of the 
Kevolutionary period, was associated with Hamilton and Madison in 
20 



1 


«^ 


1 


1 in 1: 


" 


i 1 1 

111 


. 


t;l ' 1 




ii I-;: 


1 


f; 


1 






230 



AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 



the production of tlie Federalist. Jay wrote only five of the papers 
in the Federalist, being prevented from writing others by an injury 
received in the interim. He is, however, universally accepted as one 
of the great men who contributed powerfully by his pen to the achieve- 
ment of national independence and to the organization and settlement 
of the new government. 

Dr. ^Vitllerspoon. , 

John Witherspoon, D.D., LL. D., 1722-1794, sixth in the line of 
illustrious Presidents of the College of New Jersey, contributed largely 
to the literature of the period, and was in various ways one of the 
leaders of public opinion, both political and religious. 

He took an active part in Provincial aifairs ; represented the Prov- 
ince of New Jersey in the Continental Congress, from 1776 to 1782 ; 
and was one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. He 
was a ready debater, and carried great weight, both in ecclesiastical 
and political assemblies. He was remarkable for his wit, and often 
used it to the discomfiture of his opponents. He was through life 
active in the use of his pen, and his writings, though less known now 
than formerly, exerted an important influence upon the men of his 
generation. 

One of the works which he published before leaving Scotland, Eccle- 
siastical Characteristics, created a decided breeze. It was written to 
expose the character of what was known as the Moderate party in the 
Church of Scotland, including such men as Blair, Kobertson, Camp- 
bell, and Gerard, and by its racy wit as well as by its solid argument 
gained for the author great applause. Under the form of a defence 
of the worldly spirit and practices of the Moderates, he assailed them 
with a merciless irony which penetrated between the very joints of 
the harness. It was a species of attack to which there could be no 
reply, and from which there was no escape. 



Francis Hopkinson. 

Francis Hopkinson, 1737-1791, was the author of many humorous 
pieces, both prose and verse, which did good service to the popular 
cause. Some of his productions, like the Battle of the Kegs, set the 
whole country in a roar. 

>^ Hugh Henry Braekenridge. 

Hugh Henry Braekenridge, 1748-1816, was one of the ablest hu- 
morists of the Revolutionary period. His chief work, Modern Chiv- 



-^i^ •^^^c- 



-z^-^. 



^^C^ 



THE REVOLUTIONAEY PERIOD. 231 

alrj, is worthy of a permanent place in literature. Its satire is keen 
and trenchant, and its sketches of life and manners in Western Penn- 
sylvania give an admirable picture of society in that region at the 
close of the last century. 

John Trumbull. 

John Trumbull, LL. D., 1750-1831, the author of numerous works, 
is chiefly known by his poem of McFingal, a work in the style of 
Hudibras, and intended to hold the British up to ridicule. 

Joel BarloAAT. 

Joel Barlow, 1755-1812, gained a rather unenviable notoriety by his 
ambitious attempt at a great American epic, The Columbiad. It is 
composed of a series of Visions, in which Hesper, the genius of the 
western continent, reveals to Columbus in prison the future history of 
the new world. Its merits were so far short of its pretensions that it 
only provoked ridicule. 

The most popular of Barlow's works was a poem, called Hasty 
Pudding, containing a good deal of genuine humor. 

President D^A^ight. 

Timothy Dwight, D. D., 1752-1817, President of Yale College, was 
almost equally distinguished as a theologian and a man of letters, 
while for skill and ability in the administration of the afiairs of the 
College, he is justly regarded as a model President. 

Dwight' s principal work is his Theology, 5 vols., 8vo. Among his 
literary labors should be mentioned his revision of Watts's Psalms. 
In this work, he added translations of his own, of such Psalms as 
Watts had not attempted, and annexed a selection of Hymns. The 
work was approved and adopted, not only by the Association, but also 
by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. Dwight's ver- 
sion of the 139th Psalm, beginning with the words, 

I love thy kingdom. Lord, 

has been a general favorite. 

Fisher Ames. 

Fisher Ames, 1758-1808, contributed much, by his writings and 
speeches, towards the consolidation of the Government, after the war 
of Independence. 



232 AMEEICAN LITEEATUEE. 

His works have been publislied in 2 vols., 8vo. They consist 
mainly of speeches and essays, and are models of style. 

In all the writings of this period, there are none that exceed those 
of Fisher Ames in vigor of thought and expression. He was remark- 
able for the aptness of his classical allusions and for the frequency 
and beauty of his comparisons. These are so numerous, indeed, that 
the reader would weary of them as needless ornament, were it not for 
the intense earnestness that everywhere breathes through the glowing 
periods. 

David Ramsay. 

David Eamsay, M. D., 1749-1815, was the earliest American histo- 
rian of note. His chief works are a History of the United States, 
and a History of South Carolina. Dr. Ramsay did not rise to the 
dignity of a classical historian. His works are wanting in artistic 
treatment. But they are eminently truthful and accurate, and they 
can never be safely ignored by those who wish to be well acquainted 
with the history of the United States. He had the advantage of liv- 
ing in close relationship to the afiairs which he describes, and in 
many of them he was an eye-witness and an actor ; and he has withal, 
like John Marshall, that character for entire honesty and for sobriety 
of judgment, which makes his testimony, and in most cases also his 
opinions, authoritative and final. 




II fi 




CHAPTER III. 

(1800-1SS0.) 

The famous taunt of the Edinburgh Eeview, "Who reads an 
American book?" had its sting in the fact that in those days there 
was a real dearth of authorship in the United States. 

The earlier colonial literature was already among the things of the 
past. The literary activity of the Kevolutionary period had subsided 
with the subsidence of the political ferment in which that special 
activity originated. After the achievement of Independence and the 
establishment of a national Government, the American people were too 
busy in the work of material progress, to give much attention to liter- 
ature and science. There were, indeed, some honorable exceptions to 
this remark. But on the whole, the growth of the nation in this 
direction was by no means equal to its progress in other respects. 

Chapter Third, 1800-1830, represents the national literature in its 
incipient, formative condition, under the new order of things, and is 
comparatively weak and meagre. 

Robert Treat Paine, Jr. 

Eobert Treat Paine, Jr., 1773-1811, was the author of several poems 
which had a temporary notoriety, but he is now almost exclusively 
known, so far as he is known at all, by a patriotic song, called Adams 
and Liberty. 

Fessenden. 

Thomas Green Fessenden, 1771-1837, gained much notoriety as a 
humorous and satirical writer, under the name x)f Christopher Caustic. 
His two chief poems were Terrible Tractoration. and the Country 
Lovers. 

20* 2S3 



234 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Joseph Hopkinson. 

Joseph Hopkinson, LL. D., 1770-1842, is known in literature by a 
single brief production only, the patriotic song of Hail Columbia. 

Francis S. Key. 

Francis Scott Key, 1779-1843, is, like Hopkinson, indebted for lit- 
erary celebrity to the composition of a single patriotic song, The Star- 
Spangled Banner. 

Samuel Woodworth. 

Samuel Woodworth, 1785-1842, a poet of some note, is the author 
of the familiar lyric, The Old Oaken Bucket. 

Joseph Rodman Drake. 

Joseph Rodman Drake, 1795-1820, gave promise of the highest 
excellence as a poet. His early death caused profound regret. He is 
chiefly known as the author of The Culprit Fay, which is his largest 
poem, and The American Flag, which is the most popular. 

Charles Broekden Brown. 

Charles Broekden Brown, 1771-1810, was a novelist of good repute, 
and was the first American of any considerable note who made litera- 
ture a profession. Two of his novels, Arthur Mervyn and Edgar 
Huntley, have taken a place in Bentley's Library of Standard Eo- 
mance. 

William Wirt. 

William Wirt, LL.D., 1772-1834, though chiefly distinguished for 
his legal and forensic abilities, has an honored place in literature by 
his British Spy and his Life of Patrick Henry. 

Wilson the Ornithologist. 

Alexander Wilson, 1766-1813, was the founder of American Orni- 
thology, and his great work on the birds of the United States was not 
only the earliest, but in some respects the best that has been written 
on that subject. The work was printed in 9 vols, imperial 4to, with 
plates engraved and colored from original drawings taken from na- 
ture. The title was American Ornithology, or The Natural History 
of the Birds of the United States. 



i 



FEOM 1800 TO 1830. 235 

Like every great ornithologist worthy of the name, Wilson was a 
po3t as well as a man of science. He had an eye to see the beauty of 
the bird's life as well as of his plumage, and records the doings and 
the ways of his little friends with the fondness of a lover and the 
imagination of an artist. 

Audubon. 

John James Audubon, 1780-1851, was a worthy successor of Wilson, 
in the walk of Ornithology. Audubon's work, The Birds of America, 
equalled Wilson's in the poetical beauty of the descriptions, and sur- 
passed it in the splendor of the engraving and coloring. 

Audubon's work not only won for hiniself universal renown, but 
gave to the study of ornithology a new impulse, under which it has 
since made prodigious advances. It is difficult to say which is most 
fascinating, his pictures of the birds, which were manifestly drawn 
with a loving hand, or his description of their habits and of his soli- 
tary rambles in studying them. 

The subscription price of the work was $1000. It contained 448 
plates of birds of the natural size, engraved from his original draw- 
ings, and beautifully colored. The engravings filled 5 folio volumes, 
and the descriptions filled 5 volumes more, 8vo. 

Audubon published also, in connection with his sons, Quadrupeds 
of North America, in 3 vols., folio, 150 plates, with 3 vols., 8vo, of 
descriptions. 

Noah Webster. 

Noah Webster, LL. D., 1758-1843, is known the world over by his 
Spelling-Book and his American Dictionary of the English Language. 

The sale of Webster's Spelling-Book, notwithstanding the large 
number of competitors now in the market, is over a million of copies 
annually, and the entire sale is supposed to have been over fifty mil- 
lions. The Dictionary, as finally revised, has also an enormous sale. 
It is published in a great variety of forms, from the Imperial Quarto, 
of 1840 pages, down to the small Primary and Pocket Dictionaries of 
320 pages, 16mo. 

Chancellor Kent. 

James Kent, LL.D., 1763-1847, the distinguished Chancellor of 
the State of New York, enriched the literature of his profession by 
his Commentaries upon American Law, — a work commended by the 
excellence of its style as well as by its legal acumen, and received as 
a text-book wherever the subject itself is a matter of study. 



236 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Judge Story. 

Joseph Story, 1779-1845, ia considered as ranking next to Kent as 
a jurist. His great work on the Constitution of the United States con- 
tains, from the nature of its subject, much that is not strictly profes- 
sional, and that brings it to some extent within the range of general 
literature. 

Chief-Justice Marshall. 

John Marshall, 1755-1835, long Chief Justice of the United States, 
connected himself with the general literature of the country by his 
Life of Washington. 








CHAPTER IV. 

(18SO-18SO.) 

The period included in the present chapter was one of great and 
healthy progress. With the increase of material wealth came a cor- 
responding growth in the department of letters. ~* The number of 
writers was greatly multiplied, and literature itself began to take rank 
as a regular profession. 

The writers included in Chapter IV. are divided into eight sections : 
1. The Poets, beginning with Poe ; 2. Writers of Novels, Tales, etc., 
beginning with Cooper ; 3. Writers of History and Biography, begin- 
ning with Irving ; 4. Writers on Literature and Criticism, beginning 
with Emerson ; 5. Wi'iters on Political Affairs, beginning with Alex- 
ander and Edward Everett; 6. Scientific Writers, beginning with 
Silliman ; 7. Writers on Religion and Theology, beginning with 
Archibald Alexander ; 8. Miscellaneous Writers, beginning with JMjrs. 
Sigourney. 

I. THE POETS. 

Poe. 

Edgar Allan Poe, 1811-1849, was endowed with poetical gifts of the 
rarest and most wonderful kind. Had he united with these gifts high 
moral principle, and a power of will and of persistent labor, such as 
marks all true greatness, he might have made for himself a name above 
that of any yet known to American letters. The two short poems by 
which almost exclusively he is known. The Eaven and The Bells, 
although not of the liighest order of poetry, and only hints of what the 
author might have done, are yet unique and unsurpassed in their kind. 

Among Poe's prose pieces is an essay on The Rationale of Verse, 

237 



sf( 



238 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

that deserves particular study. One of the curiosities of this essay is 
that part of it in which he describes minutely the process of his own 
mind in the creation of The Eaven. 

Halleek. 

Fitz-Greene Halleek, 1795-1867, wrote comparatively little, but that 
little is of such extraordinary excellence as to have made it a matter 
of general regret that the author produced no more. His Marco Boz- 
zaris is probably the best war lyric in the language. 

Richard Henry Dana. 

Richard Henry Dana, 1787 , although living to a good old age, 

achieved his principal distinction in letters more than half a century 
ago. His chief poem is The Buccaneer. 

Pierpont. 

John Pierpont, 1785-1866, published a volume of sacred verse, 
called Airs of Palestine ; also, a large number of short domestic lyrics 
which had great popularity. One of these, called Passing Away, is 
familiar to most readers. 

Pereival. 

James Gates Pereival, 1795-1856, was once in high repute as a 
poet. He published three volumes, under the title of Clio, containing 
a miscellany of prose and poetry. 

John Hovv^ard Payne. 

John Howard Payne, 1792-1852, was the author of several dra- 
matic works, which met with good success, but is chiefly known by his 
song of Home, Sweet Home. 

Charles Sprague. 

Charles Sprague, 1791 , is the author of a number of short 

poems which have been very popular. His Shakespeare Ode is the 
one most highly prized, but none is so often quoted as The Family 
Meeting. 

Mrs. Osgood. 

Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, 1812-1850, holds deservedly a high 
place among the poetesses of America. She wrote no one great'poem, 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 239 

but she was for nearly twenty years an industrious contributor to cur- 
rent literature, her productions steadily improving to the last. Her 
collected poems, all short, fill a large octavo, and are a valuable addi- 
tion to the literature of the period in which they were produced. 

Hannaln F. Gould. 

Hannah F. Gould, 1789-1865, wrote many charming pieces in 
verse, which were general favorites with the public, and some of 
which will probably hold a permanent place in literature. She ex- 
celled in the quiet themes of home life, such as The Snow-Flake, and 
The Frost. 

Mrs. Shindler (late Mrs. Dana). 

Mrs. Mary S. B. Shindler, 1810 , better known to the reading 

public as Mrs. Dana, is the author of numerous works, both prose and 
verse, chiefly the latter. The poems by which she first gained celeb- 
rity appeared in 1840, in a volume called The Southern Harp. 

II. ^ATRITERS OF NOVELS, TALES, ETC. 

Cooper. 

James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851, was the first American novel- 
ist that gained a national reputation. He was also the first American 
writer that obtained general recognition in Europe, and until lately 
was the most widely known abroad of all Americans, excepting only 
Washington and Franklin. His tales of pioneer life threw a glamour 
over the American landscape, not unlike, and hardly inferior, to that 
which Scott had thrown over Scotland, flis sea tales are still un- 
equalled in their kind, on either side of the Atlantic. 

Cooper's strong point as a novelist is his power of description. His 
scenes stand before the eye with the most perfect and absolute dis- 
tinctness. Another feature, equally marked, is his nationality — not 
so much the nationality of feeling, which often leads its possessor into 
saying what is absurd, but that which led him to write about the 
scenes and things that he was familiar with and had seen in his own 
land. American scenery, manners, customs, and ideas, first stood forth 
in distinct relief in the pages of Cooper. He was equally happy in 
depicting sea-life, which never had a truer or more vivid painter than 
in the author of The Pilot. 

Cooper's novels number not less than thirty. They are divisible 
mainly into two classes, one consisting of sea-stories, of which The 



240 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Pilot and The Red Eover are the most notable examples, and the other 
descriptive of pioneer life, the most noted of them being The Spy, The 
Pioneer, and The Last of the Mohicans. The latter class is sometimes 
called the Leather-Stocking Tales, from the hunter-hero Leather-Stock- 
ing, who appears in several of them. 

Besides his works of fiction, Mr. Cooper wrote A History of the 
Navy of the United States, 2 vols., and Lives of American Naval Offi- 
cers, 2 vols. He wrote also a series of sketches of travel, including 
works on England, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and filling 10 vols. 
The complete edition of his works occupies 34 vols. 

Mr. Cooper appears to have had a not very amiable temper, and all 
the latter part of his life he was in hot water, quarrelling first with one 
set of people, and then with another. His writings, too, are of very 
unequal merit. It would be difficult to name an author of such very 
high merit, who has written so much that is absolutely worthless. 
Fully one half of what he wrote was a dead weight and a drag upon 
the other half. With all these drawbacks, however, he was one of the 
greatest and most original writers of his day, and he divided with 
Washington Irving the general refcognition which was awarded them 
in Europe. 

Miss Sedgwick. 

Catherine M. Sedgwick, 1789-1867, as a novelist, holds about the 
same rank among the writers of her own sex in the United States that 
Cooper holds among the writers of the other sex. She was the first of 
her class whose writings became generally known, and the eminence 
universally conceded to her on account of priority has been almost as 
generally granted on other grounds. The novels by which she is best 
known are Hope Leslie, and Redwood. 

Miss Mcintosh. 

Maria J. Mcintosh, 1803 , has written a large number of novels 

and tales, all of a domestic character, and all excellent in tone and 
spirit. Those which have shown greatest power, and met with the 
most general acceptance, are Conquest and Self-Conquest, Charms and 
Counter-Charms, The Lofty and The Lowly, and Two Lives, or To 
Seem and To Be. Miss Mcintosh worthily takes up the line of succes- 
sion after Miss Sedgwick. 

Jolin P. Kennedy. 
John Pendleton Kennedy, 1795-1870, comes next after Cooper and 
Miss Sedgwick in the list of American novelists. Flis three novels, 



\ 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 241 

Swallow Barn, Horse-Shoe Eobinson, and Eob of the Bowl, besides 
their value as works of art, are all careful historical studies, giving us 
admirable pictures of life in the Southern States in the earlier days 
of the republic. 

James K. Paulding. 

James Kirke Paulding, 1778-1860, was distinguished both as a poli- 
tician and a man of letters. He held various political offices, the high- 
est being that of Secretary of the Navy. He wrote numerous works, 
prose and verse, humorous and serious. The best known are John 
Bull and Brother Jonathan, The Three Wise Men of Gotham, and 
The Dutchman's Fireside. 

John Sanderson. 

John Sanderson, 1783-1844, was a man of genial temper and great 
kindness of heart, and a genuine humorist. His American in Paris, 
and American in London, have seldom been excelled for brilliancy of 
wit. Besides these works, he edited The Biography of the Signers of 
the Declaration of Independence, in seven volumes, and wrote the 
first two volumes of the collection. 

Joseph C. Neal. 

Joseph C. Neal, 1807-1847, was, like Sanderson, essentially a hu- 
morist. Mr. Neal's Charcoal Sketches, containing amusing pictures 
of city life, were in their time as original and as racy as the earlier 
papers of the same kind by Dickens. Another volume of like char- 
acter, by Mr. Neal, was called Peter Ploddy and Other Oddities. 

Mr. Neal died in early manhood, much lamented by the public, with 
whom he was fast becoming a general favorite. j 

John Neal. 

John Neal, 1793 , is at this time the Nestor of American mag- 

azinists. He began writing early in life, his first volume having ap- 
peared in 1817, and he has continued almost to the present time to 
exercise his gifts, his latest volume bearing the date of 1870-. Mr. Neal 
first gained celebrity in 1824, by a series of brilliant papers in Black- 
wood's Magazine. These papers were chiefly on American affairs, and 
were written in England, where the author was at that time resident. 
21 Q 



I'j 



242 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Charles Fenno Hoffman. 

Cliarles Fenno Hoffman, 1806 , held in the last generation a 

conspicuous place in general literature. He founded the well-known 
Knickerbocker Magazine, and published several volumes both of prose 
and verse, and was one of the notabilities of New York city, social 
and literary. Since 1850, mental disorder has kept him in complete 
retirement from the world. 

N. P. Willis. 

Nathaniel Parker Willis, 1806-1867, was in his day a leader among 
the " lesser lights " of American literature. He was identified with 
the New York Mirror and the Home Journal, at that time the two 
most popular of our literary journals. He wrote poetry which found 
its way into most common-school Reading Books, and into all young 
ladies' albums. He wrote volumes of prose, filled with sketches of 
scenery and snatches of social gossip, which seemed to charm every 
reader. Partly by his lively manner, partly by the personality of his 
sketches, partly by appealing to the popular taste for what is striking 
and bizarre, he succeeded in making himself at one time the most 
widely read author of his class in America. 

The best known of his poetical works are his Scriptural Poems. 
The principal of his prose works are Pencillings by the Way, Ink- 
lings by the Way, People I have Met, Life Here and There, Hurry- 
graphs, and Famous Persons and Places. 

George P. Morris. 

George P. Morris, 1802-1864, was intimately associated, in fame and 
fortunes, with Mr. Willis. They were jointly concerned in the New 
York Mirror and the Home Journal, and as such were for a time the 
arbiters of taste and fashion in literary matters. Mr. Morris was 
chiefly distinguished as a song writer. Prominent among these short 
lyrics are My Mother's Bible; Woodman, Spare that' Tree; Long 
Time Ago ; Near the Lake where Drooped the Willow. 

Miss Leslie. 

Eliza Leslie, 1787-1857, was the sister of Leslie the artist, and was 
by birth and social position brought into terms of intimacy with 
Adams, Jefferson, and the other men of note who lived in the early 
part of the present century. She held a conspicuous rank as a writer, 
and was particularly happy as a satirist of social affectations and of 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 243 

pretence and vulgarity of every kind. Her story of Mrs. Wasiiington 
Potts is worthy of Dickens. 

Mrs. Kirkland. 

Mrs. Caroline M. (Stansbury) Kirkland, 1801-1864, held in her day 
a high place among the writers on domestic and social topics. She 
was a shrewd observer, and she expressed her observations with sin- 
gular clearness and point. Among her works deserving of special 
commendation is one called Fireside Talks on Morals and Manners. 
She also wrote, under the name of "Mrs. Mary Clavers," several works 
descriptive of pioneer life in the West, in which she gave full play to 
the sense of humor with which she was largely gifted. 

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child. 

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, 1802 , has been for nearly fifty years 

one of our leading literary celebrities. She has written chiefly on 
social topics, dividing her attention between the instruction of the 
young and the discussion of the vexed question of domestic slavery. 

Mrs. Emily Judson — '*^ Fanny Forrester." 

Mrs. Emily Judson, 1817-1854, became widely known, first by her 
contributions to polite literature, under the familiar name of " Fanny 
Forrester," and then by her self-denying labors as the wife of the vet- 
eran missionary, Adoniram Judson . Her best known work was Alder- 
brook, a collection of sketches and poems. 

Mrs. Alice B. Haven. 

Mrs. Alice B. Haven, 1828-1863, was at the time of her death one 
of the most promising young authors in the field of American letters. 
Several of her sma,ll volumes, written under the name of " Cousin 
Alice," form a part of our standard literature for the young. 

Mrs. Haven had a fine fancy, a delicate perception of the beautiful 
in character or conduct, and a rare gift for embodying her conceptions 
in attractive form. She was particularly successful as a writer for the 
young, and her efforts in that line, under the name of " Cousin Alice," 
are worthy of a permanent place in literature. 

The following is a list of her principal works : Helen Morton ; No 
Such Word as Fail ; Patient Waiting No Loss ; Contentment Better 
than Wealth; All's Not Gold that Glitters; The Gossips of River- 
town, etc. 



244 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz. 

Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, 1804^1856, contributed largely by her 
pen to tbe amusement and instruction of the last generation. The two 
best known of her numerous productions were The Mob Cap, and Aunt 
Patty's Scrap Bag. 



III. HISTORY AND BIOORAPHY. 

Washington Irving. 

"Washington Irving, LL.L., 1783-1859, is on the whole the bright- 
est and the dearest name in the annals of American literature. He 
is almost equally known as an historian, and as a writer of tales and 
sketches, and in both departments he stands clearly in the first class. 
His most important historical works are his Life of Washington, and 
his Life of Columbus. His best works of imagination and humor are 
the Sketch Book, Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, and Knick- 
erbocker's History of New York. A uniform edition of his works 
has been published, in 15 vols., to which should be added A Memoir 
of Irving, in 5 vols., by his nephew, Pierre Irving. 

Irving's character as a man and a writer is too well known to call 
for any but the briefest notice. As a man his geniality of disposition 
has become proverbial. . Probably no other American ever met with 
such a hearty welcome abroad from men of all classes and nationali- 
ties. Luring the twenty odd years that he passed in Europe, he had 
for his warm friends such men as Scott, Moore, Campbell, Byron, in 
fact, nearly all the leading literary characters of the day. In his own 
country he was no less the idol of his times. 

As a writer, he may be safely pronounced to be the most popular 
of all American authors. His works are known and read by every 
one. Liedrich Knickerbocker, Sleepy Hollow, Dolf Heyliger, Icha- 
bod Crane, Eip Van Winkle, have become household names and 
forms. No other creations of the imagination have taken such promi- 
nence in American literature. If not so grand or so subtle as Haw- 
thorne's, they are more life-like, more genial, more generally compre- 
hended. As an historian, he is subject to one grave criticism. He is 
too diffiise in his treatment of the subject, and his style is at times 
altogether too florid. The descriptions of scenery and incidents are 
too highly colored for the sober pages of history. Taken all in all, 
however, his name is still, as already said, the brightest and the dear- 
est in the annals of American literature. 



PROM 1830 TO 1850. 245 

Jared Sparks. 

Jared Sparks, LL.D., 1794-1866, is justly considered one of the 
most eminent contributors to American history. His labors were 
partly editorial, and partly those of original authorship, and in both 
respects he is entitled to a high rank. He is chiefly known by his 
American Biography, and his editions of the works of Washington 
and Franklin. 

John G. Palfrey. 

John Gorham Palfrey, D.D., LL.D., 1796 , is the author of 

various works, chief among which is, A History of New England 
under the Stuart Dynasty. 

William L. Stone. 

Col. William Leete Stone, 1793-1844, for a long time one of the 
most conspicuous journalists in the United States, made several valu- 
able contributions to the colonial history of New York, particularly 
that relating to the border wars between the whites and the Indians. 
His chief works in this line were a Life of Sir William Johnson, a 
Life of Joseph Brandt, a Life of Eed Jacket, and the Poetry and 
History of Wyoming. 

Charles J. Ingersoll. 

Charles Jared Ingersoll, 1782-1862, wrote much on historical and 
political subjects, his chief work being a History of the War of 1812- 
15, between Great Britain and the United States, in 4 vols. 

Charles E. A. Guyarre. 

Charles E. Arthur Guyarre, 1805 , an eminent lawyer of New 

Orleans, has acquired distinction by his various contributions to the 
history of Louisiana. His chief works are: History of Louisiana 
(French Domination), 2 vols., 8vo; History of Louisiana (Spanish 
Domination), 1 vol., 8vo ; Romance of the History of Louisiana. 

William Allen. 

William Allen, D. D., 1784-1868, President of Bowdoin College, is 
widely known to the reading public by his American Biographical and 
Historical Dictionary, the first work of the kind published in the 
United States. 
21* 



246 AMEEICAN LITERATUEE. 

IV. WRITERS ON LITERATURE AND CRITICISM. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 , is a conspicuous figure in the 

literature of the period now under consideration. 

Mr. Emerson is an independent thinker, and is remarkable equally 
for the originality and the subtilty of his thoughts, and for his power 
of expression. In the latter respect he is indeed an enigma. Nobody 
can express himself more clearly than Mr. Emerson, when he chooses. 
But when he does not choose, nobody can more successfully hide his 
meaning, if he has any, under a show of plain words and simple con- 
structions. The Sphinx is not a greater mystery than are some of 
Mr. Emerson's delphic sayings, though clothed in words and phrases 
as plain as Blair's Sermons, or Murray's English Grammar. 

Mr. Emerson is a transcendentalist of the most advanced school ; and 
his views on the higher subjects of mind and spirit are so far removed 
from the common apprehension, that it is not easy to formulate them, 
or to say precisely what he does think and teach. 

As an essayist and a lecturer on more familiar subjects, he is singu- 
larly attractive. His method is, not to reason, in the ordinary sense 
of the term, but to utter truth oracularly, leaving it to make its own 
appeal to the intuitions of the reader or hearer. 

A uniform edition of his works has been printed in 6 vols., as fol- 
lows: Essays, 2 vols. ; Representative Men, 1 vol.; English Traits, 1 
vol. ; Lectures and Addresses, 1 vol. ; Poems, 1 vol. 

The volumes of Essays and of Lectures are exceedingly various in 
style and subject, but contain in fragmentary form all those peculiari- 
ties of his style, as a thinker and a writer, which have given him such 
a wide celebrity. The satne is true to a certain extent of his Poems. 
Some of these have, in form and finish, all the brilliance and the ex- 
actness of the diamond — hard, bright, and cutting. It would be dif- 
ficult to find, outside of the Greek Anthology, anything more abso- 
lutely faultless than some of these little gems. Others again belong 
to the order of the Sphinx, and may be safely commended to those 
who are fond of riddles. The most important volume in the series is 
that which contains Representative Men. In this, under six great 
heads, Mr. Emerson, more nearly than in any of his other works, 
gives expression to his system as a whole. The topics are : 1. Plato, 
the Philosopher ; 2. Swedenborg, the Mystic ; 3. Montaigne, the Skep- 
tic ; 4. Shakespeare, the Poet ; 5, Napoleon, the Man of the World ; 
6. Goethe, the Writer. The mental portraits sketched undt • these 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 247 

six heads give us Mr. Emerson himself, so far as he is capable of being 
formulated at all. 

Margaret Fuller, Marchioness D'Ossoli. 

Sarah Margaret Fuller, Marchioness D'Ossoli, 1810-1850, is asso- 
ciated, in history and in her modes of thinking and writing, with her 
friend and biographer, Eal^^h Waldo Emerson. Her writings were 
chiefly critical, her Papers on Literature and Art being her best vol- 
ume. She was while living noted also for her conversational power, 
in which particular she is thought to have been fully equal to the 
celebrated Madame de Stael. 

While on a visit to Kome, she was married to Giovanni, Marquis 
D'Ossoli. She and her husband and their only child perished in a 
shipwreck ofi'the American coast, in July, 1850. 

Horace Binney Wallace. 

Horace Binney Wallace, 1817-1852, was a man of remarkable abili- 
ties and character. His posthumous volumes on Art and Scenery in 
Europe, and Literary Criticisms and Other Papers, though fragmen- 
tary and incomplete, give on every page evidence of the very highest 
abilities as a literary and art critic. His early death occasioned pro- 
found regret. 

Henry Reed. 

Henry Eeed, LL. D., 1808-1854, grandson of General Joseph Keed 
of Revolutionary memory, and Professor of Rhetoric and English 
Literature in the University of Pennsylvania, is widely and most fa- 
vorably known by his Lectures on English Literature and other works 
of a like character. 

Verplanck. 

Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, LL.D., 1787-1870, was the first 
American who distinguished himself in the difficult walk of Shake- 
spearian criticism. His edition of Shakespeare's Plays, with a Life 
and Critical Notes, v/as an honor to American scholarship, and was 
tlie best American edition of Shakespeare prior to that of Eichard 
Grant White. 

Rufus W. Gris\vold. 

Rufus Wilmot Griswold, D.D., 1815-1857, without having much 
native talent, with little scholarship, and with less either of taste or 



ifill 



248 AMERICAN. LITERATUEE. 

judgment in literary matters, yet by persevering industry and by skill 
in availing himself of the help of others, not only gained distinction 
for himself, but did important service in the cause of American letters. 
His chief works, The Female Poets of America, The Prose Writers 
of America, and The Poets and Poetry of America, are valuable and 
permanent contributions to our literature. 



V. POLITICAL WRITERS, 

Alexander H. Kverett. 

Alexander Hill Everett, 1790-1847, was a man of letters as well as 
a statesman, and did much by his writings to give shape to the national 
policy. His writings did much also towards vindicating American 
statesmanship before the bar of European opinion. His two largest 
works, one on the State of Europe, and one on the State of Amer- 
ica, challenged and gained general and respectful attention. His nu- 
merous contributions to the North American Eeview also formed a 
valuable body of political criticism and debate. 

Edward Everett. 

Edward Everett, D. C. L., 1794-1865, in addition to the many and 
varied gifts of his brother Alexander, as a writer and a negotiator of 
affairs of state, had the rare qualities of a consummate orator. He 
had from boyhood a natural gift for eloquence, and he cultivated the 
art to the highest point that the most assiduous study and practice 
could enable him to reach. Plis writings are numerous and varied, 
but his fame rests chiefly on his Orations. These have- been published 
in four large volumes, and are an enduring monument of his genius. 

Daniel Webster, 

Daniel Webster, 1782-1852, was not merely a great lawyer and a 
great statesman ; he was also a great master of sound English, and as 
such is entitled to a conspicuous position in the literary records of his 
country. 

His works have been published in 6 vols., 8vo, consisting of Speeches, 
Forensic Arguments, and Diplomatic Papers. 

Brilliant as Webster's Congressional speeches are, they do not fully 
equal his set orations. Three of these — the Plymouth Bock dis- 
course, the Bunker Hill Monument discourse, and the Eulogy on 
Adams and Jefferson — are among the very choicest masterpieces of 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 249 

all ages and all tongues. Nothing in the palmy days of Greece or 
E,ome, or England or France, has ever surpassed these orations in unity 
and harmony of structure, or in simple but majestic diction. The 
genius of Webster here reveals itsel:^ unfettered by the needs of party 
and untainted by the heat of debate, in all its depth, its sweetness, 
and its originality. We cannot analyze these orations. Each seems 
to pour itself forth as the single, spontaneous utterance of a great crea- 
tive mind. It is the voice of a man who has something grand to say 
to his fellow-men. To the student, these orations, and indeed all 
Webster's speeches, may be recommended as models of style to be 
carefully considered. 

John Quiney Adams. 

John Quiney Adams, 1767-1848, son of John Adams, and sixth 
President of the United States, was a man of varied learning, and his 
writings, both literary and political, are numerous. 

Mr. Adams published during his life several volumes, among which 
may be named Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory ; The Bible and its 
Teachings, a series of letters to his son ; Poems of Religion and So- 
ciety ; and Letters on Freemasonry. A collective edition of his works, 
by his son Charles Francis Adams, has been promised. 

Benton. 

Thomas Hart Benton, 1782-1858, for thirty years a representative 
of Missouri in the Senate of the United States, was one of the most 
eminent of political writers, as well as one of the most distinguished 
of American statesmen. Besides his Speeches he publivshed two works 
of great political and literary value, namely, his Thirty Years' View, 
and his Abridgment of the Debates of Congress. 

Clay. 

Henry Clay, 1777-1852, acquired special distinction as an orator. 
His Speeches have been published in 2 vols., 8vo. Though valuable 
merely as literary efforts, they give little idea of his wonderful powers, 
his eloquence, much more than that of his great political compeers, 
depending upon the matchless graces of his delivery. 

Calhoun. 

John Caldwell Calhoun, 1782-1850, was one of the most distin- 
guished political writers and thinkers of his generation. However 



250 AMEKICAN LITERATURE. 

much his compeers may have differed from him in views, there was 
among them but one opinion in regard to his transcendent abilities. 
His Works, consisting mainly of speeches, have been published in 6 
vols., 8vo, and form a compact and coherent system of political opinion. 

Hugh S. Legare. 

Hugh Swinton Legare, 1797-1843, was almost equally distinguished 
as a jurist, and as a man of letters, and in both respects he was held in 
great estimation. His works have been published in 2 vols., 8vo. 
They comprise speeches and papers on political, literary, and histori- 
cal subjects, and show him to have been a man of high culture and of 
a most genial temper. 

Rufus Choate. 

Eufus Choate, LL. D., 1799-1859, was a man of commanding abili- 
ties at the bar and in the Senate, and hardly less distinguished in 
letters. His contributions to literature are not numerous, but they 
are of a character to leave a permanent impress of the man upon his 
age. They have been published, with a memoir of his life, in 2 vols., 
Svo, and consist of Lectures, Addresses, and Speeches. Of his great 
forensic arguments, no adequate report remains. 

Henry V/heaton. 

Henry AVheaton, 1785-1848, was the first American writer who at- 
tained special eminence in the department of international law. His 
Elements of International Law has become a classic on that subject. 

Francis Lieber. 

Francis Lieber, LL.D., 1800-1872, Professor of History and Polit- 
i?3al Science in Columbia College, was the author of a large number of 
works, but is best known by his Manual of Political Ethics, and his 
work on Civil Liberty. 

These works have earned for their author a high reputation as a 
clear writer and a sound thinker upon the fundamental principles of 
law and government. They have been made text-books in many col- 
leges and academies of the United States, and are cited with approval 
by our most eminent legal tribunals and jurists. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 251 

VI. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS. 

Benjamin Silliman. 

Benjamin Silliman, LL.D., 1779-1864, "The I^estor of American 
Science" {Edward Everett), is universally knov/n by his works on 
Chemistry and as the founder of Siliiman's Journal of Science and 
Art. His Life and Correspondence, by Professor Fisher, 2 vols., 8vo, 
consists to a great extent of Professor Silliman' s own writings, and is 
a charming work. 

Denison Olmsted. 

Denison Olmsted, 1791-1859, long Professor of Natural Philosophy 
in Yale College, was the author of several popular text-books con- 
nected with his department of science. These are ; A Compendium 
of Natural Philosophy ; An Introduction to Natural Philosophy ; An 
Introduction to Astronomy ; A Compend of Astronomy ; and Eudi- 
ments of Natural Philosophy. 

Joseph Henry. 

Joseph Henry, LL. D., 1797 , is known almost exclusively as 

a scientist. His series of annual reports as Secretary of the Smithso- 
nian Institution, however, partake to some extent of a popular char- 
acter, and give him a place in the field of letters, though by no means 
commensurate with his position as a man of science. 

Alexander D. Baehe. 

Alexander Dallas Bache, LL.D., 1806-1867, a distinguished philos- 
opher, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, achieved the 
crowning glory of his life in the successful prosecution of the work of 
the United States Coast Survey. Apart from that, however, his suc- 
cess in other departments of science and letters would have given him 
a lasting place in the national history. His chief publication of a 
general character was a volume on the European System of Educa- 
tion, being a report to the directors of Girard College. 

Robley Dunglison. 

Eobley Dunglison, M.D., LL.D., 1798-1869, was for almost half a 
century one of the great ornaments of the medical profession in 
America. His chief publications, A Medical Dictionary, and Human 



lii 



252 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Physiology, though intended mainly for the medical profession, are 
not without interest to the general reader. 

Prof. Hitelieoek. 

Edward Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D., 1793-1864, distinguished him- 
self especially in the department of Geology. His various works on 
that subject have been valuable, not only as text-books for schools 
and colleges, but in vindicating the consistency of geology with reli- 
gion. His principal works of this kind are Elementary Geology ; 
Religion of Geology and its Connected Science ; and Eeligious Truth 
illustrated from Science. 

Dr. Kane. 

Elisha Kent Kane, M. D., 1820-1857, made himself known through- 
out the civilized world by his Arctic explorations and his heroic at- 
tempts to discover the fate pf Sir John Franklin. His works, de- 
scribing these explorations of the north polar regions, are at the same 
time valuable as contributions to science, and brilliant as specimens 
of English composition. 

Dr. Kane's merits, not merely as a naturalist and a daring explorer, 
but as a writer, are conspicuous in his works, especially in his account 
of the second expedition. The narrative of the dangers and suffer- 
ings of the party is given with a simplicity and vividness that place 
the work in the foremost rank of descriptive writings. 

Joseph E. "Worcester. 

Joseph E. Worcester, LL. D., 1784-1865, contested with Noah Web- 
ster the palm for lexicography, Worcester's English Dictionary is 
certainly one of the best that has ever been written, and by a large 
portion of the soundest American scholars is accepted as the best 
standard of the English language. 

Dr. Worcester's work is published in six different forms, from the 
small Primary up to the Royal Quarto. There is also a Series of 
Spellers, prepared by Dr. Worcester, on the same principles as the 
Dictionary. 

Dr. Worcester's work is the fruit of long years of unremitted and 
conscientious labor, and is in the highest degree creditable to his schol- 
arship and his critical sagacity. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 253 

Prof. Marsh. 

George P. Marsh, LL. D., 1801 , has bestowed much labor upon 

the study of-English philology. His Lectures on the English Lan- 
guage, and Lectures on Early English Literature, are standard works 
on that subject. 

Charles Anthon. 

Charles Anthon, LL. D., 1797-1867, is known almost exclusively 
by his series of Greek and Latin text-books. He stands in this line 
at the head of American scholars. Dr. Anthon never travelled into 
any of the walks of authorship outside'of his own chosen path as a 
writer and commentator in aid of classical scholarship. But in that 
walk he has won for himself a distinguished and honorable name. 

Dr. James Rush. 

James Eush, M. D., 1786-1839, is widely known by his work on 
The Philosophy of the Human Voice. This is considered by compe- 
tent critics to be not only a standard work but thoroughly exhaustive 
of the subject. It has been made the basis for a large number of 
popular and school treatises. 

VII. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. 

Archibald Alexander. 

Archibald Alexander, D. D., 1772-1851, holds a position altogether 
unique among American Presbyterians. He may not have been their 
greatest theologian, as he certainly was not their greatest writer : yet, 
by the peculiarities both of his position and of his personal character, 
he wielded an injauence altogether unprecedented in this branch of 
the American Church. 

Dr. Alexander was a man of wonderful power as a preacher. In 
this respect he probably has never been excelled by any American 
divine. As the leading Professor in the Theological Seminary at 
Princeton for nearly forty years, and during the formative period of 
that great religious denomination of which the Seminary was the 
acknowledged centre and representative, he did more probably than 
any other one man towards giving tone and shape to the Presbyterian 
Church "in the United States. 

The chief characteristics of Dr. Alexander's style are simplicity 
and clearness. He had pondered the great themes upon which he 
22 



254 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

wrote until their truths had become axiomatic to himself, and he un- 
consciously communicated something of the same character to his 
expression of them. He was remarkable also for his pure, idiomatic 
English. In his extempore addresses from the pulpit. Dr. Alexander 
was often highly imaginative. But little of this quality appears in 
any of his written discourses. 

Of all Dr. Alexander's writings, the ones which have made the deep- 
est impression on the public mind are those on the Evidences, the 
Canon, and Religious Experience. His maturest work is the small 
volume on Moral Science. It is of this that the Westminster Review, 
no friendly witness, says: "It is a calm, clear stream of abstract rea- 
soning, flowing from a thoughtful, well-instructed mind, without any 
parade of logic, but with an intuitive simplicity and directness which 
give it an almost axiomatic force." 

James Alexander. 

James Waddell Alexander, D. D., 1804-1859, eldest son of the pre- 
ceding, is widely known as an accomplished scholar and graceful writer, 
and as the author of a large number of works on religion and morals. 

He was the author of more than thirty juvenile works, written 
mostly for the American Sunday-School Union. Among these may 
be named Infant Library, Frank Harper, Carl the Young Emigrant, 
Only Son. Some of his other publications are Thoughts on Family 
Worship, and Plain Words to a Young Communicant. He prepared 
also a Biography of his father, Dr. Archibald Alexander, a large 8vo, 
of 700 pages. Many of his writings were aimed particularly at the 
improvement of the condition of the workingmen. One of these, the 
American Mechanic and Workingman, is held in high estimation. 
Another deservedly popular book of somewhat the same cast is called 
Good, Better, Best. 

Dr. Alexander was pre-eminently a scholarly man in his tastes and 
habits, being profoundly versed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and in 
three or four modern languages ; yet in his books for popular reading 
there is not the slightest hint of all this varied learning. His English 
is as pure and limpid as if he had never known any language but his 
own. 

Addison Alexander. 

Joseph Addison Alexander, D. D., 1809-1860, is on the whole the 
greatest of the remarkable family to which he belongs. His special 
department was that of Oriental literature. But he was great in almost 
every department of letters, and his contributions to English literature 



FEOM 1830 TO 1850. 255 

alone would entitle him to prominent rank, had he no other claim to 
greatness. 

He was Adjunct Professor of Ancient Languages in Princeton Col- 
lege from 1830 to 1833, and a Professor in the Theological Seminary 
from 1838 to the time of his death. 

Of a man gifted with such a rare combination of great qualities, it 
is not easy to say which was the greatest. It was as a linguist, however, 
that he is generally considered as most distinguished. He was a 
perfect master of seven languages, English, Latin, German, French, 
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, all of which he knew not only philo- 
logically, but linguistically — reading, writing, and speaking them 
with ease and fluency.. He knew profoundly, as a philologist, six 
others, Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldee, Persian, Greek, and Komaic, all of 
which he read and wrote fluently, without help, but did not speak, at 
least not familiarly. He was at home with eight others, Dutch, Danish, 
Flemish, Norwegian, Sanscrit, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Coptic, reading 
them without a Lexicon, but not writing or speaking them. He read 
with a Lexicon four others, Polish, Swedish, Malay, and Chinese. In 
all, twenty-five difierent languages. He was unquestionably the 
greatest Oriental scholar that America has ever produced. 

As his greatest attainments were in the line of languages, so his 
most important works are his Commentaries. These are the following : 
On Psalms, 2 vols. ; Isaiah, 2 vols. ; Matthew, 1 vol. ; Mark, 1 vol. ; 
Acts, 2 vols. Next to his commentaries, are his Sermons, 2 vols., and 
New Testament Literature, and Ecclesiastical History, 1 vol. 

His articles in the Princeton Review, however, give the best idea of 
the wonderful variety and depth of his attainments, as well as of the 
versatility of his genius. He was a signal proof that the study of lan- 
guages, even when pushed to their most abstruse points, does not ne- 
cessarily make one dry and dull. The United States probably never 
produced a scholar of more secluded and solitary habits. Yet his 
writings and his pulpit discourses were as simple and perspicuous as if 
he had been a mere English scholar. His sentences are as limpid in 
their flow, and glide as gently and smoothly into the reader's under- 
standing, as those of the Joseph Addison after whom he was named. 
This wonderful simplicity, both of his thoughts and his language, 
combined often with a fervid eloquence, and always with profound and 
comprehensive views, made his pulpit performances exceedingly at- 
tractive. He had, too, a warm and vigorous imagination, to which in 
his sermons he sometimes gives the rein with startling effect. His 
style is always rhythmical, showing that he had a natural ear for verse, 
and he has given some specimens of poetry of a high order. 



■Ilij 



256 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Among his other traits was a strong love of fun, and he often amused 
himself, by way of relaxation from his profounder studies, by writing 
humorous pieces for the young children of his acquaintance. At other 
times he amused himself by describing some familiar event, in lan- 
guage utterly unintelligible, although every word was taken from 
Webster's quarto dictionary. Another of his amusements was to write 
sonorous periods, faultless in diction and grammar, and apparently 
very profound, which however, on examination, were found to be en- 
tirely devoid of meaning. Indeed his love of poking good-natured fun 
at men and things was one of his most striking characteristics, and 
there is no doubt that he might have become famous as a humorist, 
had he not been drawn to higher things. 

Samuel Miller. 

Samuel Miller, D. D., 1769-1850, is associated in the minds of all 
Presbyterians with his friend and colleague. Dr. Archibald Alexander. 
Besides his great work, in giving shape and tone at its most critical 
period to theological education in the Presbyterian Church of Amer- 
ica, Dr. Miller conti^ibuted largely to the theological and religious 
literature of his church. His works are numerous and valuable, and are 
accepted as standards among most Presbyterians. The following are 
the chief: Presbyterianism the Truly Primitive and Apostolic Consti- 
tution of the Church of Christ ; Letters on Church Government ; Office 
of Puling Elder in the Presbyterian Church; Letters on Clerical 
Habits and Manners. The work last named criticised with singular 
keenness some of the bad professional habits into which young minis- 
ters are apt to fall. The work was not uncalled for, and it had a 
marked and happy effect. An admirable Life of Dr. Miller, in 2 vols., 
8vo, has been published by his son, Samuel Miller, D. D. 

Albert Barnes. 

Eev. Albert Barnes, 1798-1870, is chiefly known by his Commen- 
taries on the Scriptures. These Commentaries have been the most 
popular probably that have ever been published. " Barnes's Notes " 
is a household word wherever, in Protestant Christendom, the English 
language is spoken. The number of volumes of the series issued be- 
fore his death was over a million. 

Robert J. Breckinridge. 

Eobert Jefferson Breckinridge, D. D., LL. D., 1800-1871, was a Pres- 
byterian divine of great eminence as a writer, and still more as a 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 257 

leader. His chief work is a system of theology, under the title of The 
Knowledge of God, Objectively and Subjectively Considered. He was 
one of the acknowledged leaders in the great disruption of the Pres- 
byterian Church, which took place in 1837. 

Samuel H. Cox. 

Samuel Hanson Cox, D. D., LL. D., 1793 , is one of the nota- 
bilities of the Presbyterian Church, although his published works are 
not numerous. His principal volumes are Interviews Memorable 
and Useful, Theopneuston, and Quakerism not Christianity. 

One of the peculiarities of Dr. Cox's style, especially in his pulpit 
performance, is his fondness for ''dictionary words." No living 
preacher probably uses, in his common speech, so large a percentage 
of words of Latin origin. He has been known, even in his prayers, to 
quote whole sentences from the Latin. AVith all his peculiarities, 
however, as a writer and a speaker, he has ever been held to be a 
man of great and original force, and he has filled a large place in the 
public mind. 

Dr. Thornwell. 

James H. Thornwell, D. D., LL. D., 1811-1862, has written largely 
on the subject of Systematic Theology, and he is accounted by general 
consent one of the ablest of recent Presbyterian theologians. His 
Theological Works fill six large volumes. 

Dr. Sprague. 

William B. Sprague, D.D., 1795 , has been one of the most 

prolific writers in the Presbyterian Church. His Annals of the 
American Pulpit especially is a monument of industry and research. 
It fills 10 vols., large 8vo. 

Joel Jones. 

Joel Jones, LL. D., 1795-1860, was an eminent jurist of Philadel- 
phia, but studied and wrote much on theological subjects. His chief 
work was a large octavo volume, called Jesus and the Coming Glory, 
in which he advocated the doctrines of the Second Adventists. 

Lyman Beeeher. 

Lyman Beeeher, D.D., 1775-1863, during his long public career, 
exerted a commanding influence in the church and in society. He 
22* R 



258 



AMEEICAN LITERATURE, 



was equally celebrated as a preacher and as a writer. His writings 
are not numerous, as compared with those of his still more illustrious 
descendants, but are marked by great boldness, vigor, and clearness, 
both of thought and expression, with occasional outbursts of passion- 
ate eloquence. His chief publications are : Sermons on Temperance ; 
Views in Theology; Scepticism; Political Atheism; Plea for the 
West. 

Moses Stuart. 

Moses Stuart, 1780-1852, was one of the most eminent biblical 
scholars that America has produced, and was the first that acquired 
special distinction in this department. His publications are both 
numerous and varied, beginning as far back as 1813, and continuing, 
in an almost uninterrupted series, down to 1852. Those by which he 
is most known are his Hebrew Grammar, and his Commentaries on 
the Epistles to the Eomans and the Hebrews. 

Ed\vard Robinson. 

Edward Eobinson, D.D., LL.D., 1794-1863, was another eminent 
Biblical scholar connected for a time with Andover Theological Semi- 
nary. Of his many works, the greatest, and those most likely to be 
enduring, are his Biblical Eesearches in the Holy Land, and his 
Lexicon of the New Testament. 

Prof. Upham. 

Thomas Cogswell Upham, D.D., 1799 , is extensively and 

favorably known as the author of a text-book on Mental Philosophy. 

Dr. Bethune. 

George Washington Bethune, D.D., 1805-1862, an eloquent pulpit 
orator of the Dutch Church, was distinguished equally by his schol- 
arly tastes and the elegance of his writings. He published also a 
volume of admirable poems, called Lays of Love and Faith. 



Dr. Channing. 

William Ellery Channing, D.D., 1780-1842, was for a long time 
the acknowledged leader and the most distinguished representative of 
the Unitarian Church in the United States. His works have been 
published in 6 vols., consisting mostly of sermons and addresses, and 
of articles from the Christian Examiner. 



FEOM 1830 TO 1850. 259 

Dr. Furness. 

William Henry Furness, D. D., 1802 , has been for nearly half 

a century the chief representative of Unitarian opinion in Philadel- 
phia. As a theologian, he belongs to the extreme humanitarian 
school, as distinguished from that of Channing, Peabody, and Norton. 
He writes with great elegance and persuasiveness, and is very accom- 
plished as a man of letters. His principal writings are on the Life 
of Jesus. 

Theodore Parker. 

Theodore Parker, 1810-1860, represents the most advanced stage of 
American Rationalism. His position indeed can hardly be defined 
otherwise than one of open and avowed unbelief in Christianity. He 
was remarkable equally for the ultraism of his opinions, and for the 
learning, ability, and resolution with which he maintained them. He 
is admitted by all to have been a man of rare genius. He was an in- 
cessant worker, both with his pen and his tongue. His collected 
Works have been published in 12 vols., besides the 2 vols, of his Life 
and Correspondence. 

Bishop Potter. 

Alonzo Potter, D. D., LL. D., 1800-1865, Bishop of Pennsylvania, 
was a man of great breadth of views, and exerted an extensive influ- 
ence outside of his official range of duty. He took an active part es- 
pecially in the movements for increasing and improving the means of 
popular education, and was often present in associations of teachers, 
and always extremely welcome there. One of the most popular of his 
works was The School and The Schoolmaster, the latter part being 
written by George B. Emerson. 

Bishop Doane. 

George Washington Doane, D. D., LL. D., 1799-1859, Bishop of New 
Jersey, was a man of fine culture and literary tastes. Besides numer- 
ous sermons and addresses, he published a volume of poems, Songs by 
the Way, which have been much admired. 

Dr. Turner. 

Samuel H. Turner, D. D., 1790-1868, is by general consent the ablest 
Biblical commentator in the Episcopal Church in the United States. 
His writings on subjects connected with his department are numerous, 



Mil 



260 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

but those which have the greatest permanent value are his Commen- 
taries on Romans, Hebrews, Ephesians, and Galatians. 

Dr. Wayland. 

Francis Wayland, D. D., LL. D., 1796-1865, long the honored Presi- 
dent of Brown University, was in his day the most distinguished Bap- 
tist divine in the United States. His three principal works, Moral 
Science, Intellectual Philosophy, and Political Economy, have been 
used extensively as text-books. The author was a man of enlarged 
views, and had a national reputation. His opinions carried great 
weight outside, as well as within, his own church. 

Alexander Campbell. 

Eev. Alexander Campbell, 1788-1855, is well known as a religious 
reformer, and as the founder of a large and influential religious society, 
who call themselves Disciples of Christ. He was a man of extraordi- 
nary intellectual activity, and the amount of labor which he performed 
during the forty-five years of his ministry borders on the marvellous. 
His writings fill nearly sixty volumes, and yet they were but a part, 
and that not the largest part, of his work. His chief power was in 
unwritten discourse, and the greater part of his incessant activity v/as 
exercised as a speaker. He excelled especially in debate, and he had a .^ 
particular fondness for that method of propagating truth. As a public Jfl 
i«i <|^|i disputant on religious topics, he has probably never had his superior. ^H 

II I 

'^W\ VIII. MISCELLANEOUS ^TVRITERS. ^^ 

Mrs. Sigourney. 

Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, 1791-1865, won her way to a distin- 
guished position in letters, not by any one special and extraordinary 
work of genius, but by persistent and long continued labor, moderate 
in tone and useful in tendency. Her indefatigable pen sent forth 
one volume a year, on an average, for half a century, her first volume, 
■ Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, bearing date 1815, and her fiftieth, 
Letters of Life, a sort of autobiography, being ready for publication at 
'i. the time of her death, in 1865. 

In all this long career of authorship there was nothing to startle or 
electrify the public mind. Her writings were more like the dew than 
the lightning. Yet the dew, it is well to remember, is not only one 
of the most beneficent, but also one of the most powerful, of nature's 






FROM 1830 TO 1850. 261 

agents, — far more potential in grand results than its brilliant rival. 
When count shall be made of the various agencies, moral and intel- 
lectual, which moulded the American mind and heart during the first 
half of the nineteenth century, few names will be honored with a 
larger credit than that of Lydia H. Sigourney. 

Some of Mrs. Sigourney's small volumes, like the Whisper to a 
Bride, unpretending in character, as in appearance, yet contain a 
wealth of beauty and goodness that few would believe who have not 
examined them. Of her larger volumes, none are more widely known 
than Letters to Young Ladies, Letters to Mothers, and Letters to My 
Pupils. Past Meridian, written when the shadows of life began to 
fall about her, in the calm and cheerful serenity of its spirit, and the 
wisdom of its counsels, reminds the reader of Cicero's famous essay on 
Old Age. 

Mrs. Willard. 

Mrs. Emma Willard, 1787-1870, is more known as a woman of 
action than as an author. She devoted the greater part of a long and 
most useful life to the educatipn of women, in which her efforts, both 
as a theorist and as a practical teacher, were crowned with signal 
success. Her prominence as a writer, however, does not by any 
means correspond to that assigned to her by common consent as an 
educator. Still, she found time, in the midst of other duties of a most 
urgent character, to make several valuable contributions to the cause 
of letters. Her most important publications were, A History of the 
United States, and Universal History. 

Mrs. Phelps. 

Mrs. Almira Hart (Lincoln) Phelps, 1793 , sister of Mrs. Wil- 
lard, was like her prominently identified with the first movements to 
raise the character of education for women, and like her too made 
valuable contributions to the literature of instruction. Her text- 
books on Botany, in particular, were for a long time the best in the 
market. 

Mrs. Gilman. 

Mrs. Caroline (Howard) Gilman, 1794 , was very generally 

known to a preceding generation by her pleasant book, called Recol- 
lections of a Southern Matron. 



262 



AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 



! 



Mrs. Hale. 

Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, 1790 , like several other of the 

noble women mentioned in this section, is known all over the land by 
her life-long efforts to promote the intellectual elevation of her sex. 
Her work in this behalf has differed, however, from that of Mrs. Wil- 
lard and Mrs. Phelps, in that she has labored with her pen only. 
Besides numerous volumes of an attractive and useful kind, she has 
continued for forty-five years to cater monthly for the intellectual 
entertainment of her countrymen, through the columns of The Lady's 
Book and its predecessor The Ladies' Magazine. The high standard 
of domestic morals always observable in these magazines has undoubt- 
edly done much towards preserving the purity of American homes, 
and for this service the public is largely indebted to the sound sense 
of Sarah Josepha Hale. 

Besides her contributions to the Lady's Book, Mrs. Hale has pub- 
lished a large number of separate volumes. The largest and alto- 
gether the most important of all is her Woman's Record, a volume of 
918 pages, royal 8vo, containing biographical sketches of all distin- 
guished women from the earliest times down to the year 1868, and 
illustrated by 230 portraits. 



Mrs. Tuthill. 

Mrs. Louisa Caroline Tuthill, 1799 , has had more than ordi- 
nary success as a writer of books for the young, and she was one of 
the earliest to engage extensively in that line of composition. Her 
stories are marked by sobriety and good sense,'^nd are entirely free 
from the extravagance and sensationalism which disfigure too many 
of the books now written for juvenile readers. Her books for the 
young are numerous," and have been very popular. The following 
are the titles of some of these : I will be a Lady ; I will be a Gentle- 
man; Onward, right Onward; Anything for Sport; The Lawyer; 
The Artist ; The Mechanic, etc. 



President Quiney. 

Josiah Quiney, LL. D., 1772-1864, long the honored President of 
Harvard University, wrote much for the public, but chiefly in the form 
of pamphlets and addresses on special occasions. His principal work 
in book-form was A History of Harvard University. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 263 

Horace Mann. 

Horace Mann, LL. D., 1796-1859, is universally known by his writ- 
ings and labors in the cause of popular education. He gave to that 
cause a new and important impulse, the benefits of which have been 
felt far beyond the limits of his own time or of his personal labors. 
His writings were confined chiefly to his Annual Eeports and his 
Lectures and Addresses. 

Seh-ooleraft. 

Henry Eowe Schoolcraft, LL. D., 1793-1864, has acquired for him- 
self an enduring name, by his writings and researches in reference to 
the Indian tribes of North America. His great work, Historical In- 
formation concerning the Indian Tribes, etc., was published by act of 
Congress, in six large quarto volumes, profusely and handsomely illus- 
trated. The work contains an immense amount of information upon 
everything relating to Indian manners, mythology, antiquities, lan- 
guage, etc., but so poorly digested and so deficient in philosophic 
method as to be, in the words of Humboldt, " almost worthless." The 
volumes are a mine from which the gold is yet to be extracted by 
some future explorer. 

A. J. Downing. 

Andrew Jackson Downing, 1815-1852, was an accomplished writer 
on the subject of landscape gardening, and by his publications con- 
tributed largely to the improvement of public taste in America, in the 
matter of rural adornment. The following are his principal works : 
Landscape Gardening and Rural Architecture ; Fruit and Fruit-Trees 
of America ; Cottage Residences ; Architecture of Country Houses ; 
Rural Essays, a collection of papers printed originally in the Horti- 
culturist. 

Gallaudet. 

Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, LL. D., 1787-1851, is justly celebrated 
for his efibrts in the education of deaf mutes. He was indeed the 
apostle of this work in the United States. Besides his labors in this 
direction, he wrote many valuable works. Among these, two deserve 
particular mention. The Child's Book of the Soul, and the Youth's 
Book of Natural Theology. 

S. G. Goodrich — <^' Peter Parley." 

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, 1793-1863, better known as Peter 
Parley, was remarkably successful in simplifying various kinds of 



264 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

knowledge, chiefly historical, so as to make it easily understood by 
young readers, and consequently useful as a means of education. The 
Peter Parley books form a noticeable feature in the literature of the 
period. 

Mr. Goodrich's pen was kept busy to the close of his life, — how 
busy, may be inferred from the fact that he was either author or editor 
of one hundred and seventy distinct volumes ; and how far his labors 
were acceptable, may be judged from the fact that over seven millions 
of volumes of his works were sold during his lifetime. Mr. Goodrich 
made no pretence to classical or critical erudition or to historical 
research, but he had a special gift for writing in a style suited to the 
taste and comprehension of children, and he exercised his gift in a 
way that has brought lasting honor to him, and has been a public 
benefit to his race. 

His works may be classified as follows : Peter Parley books, 116 
vols,, on a great variety of subjects likely to interest children ; School 
books (Histories, Geographies, Eeaders, etc.), 27 vols. ; Miscellaneous, 
27 vols. 






M^i^A,^^ 




CHAPTER V. 

From isso to the Present Time. 

The present Chapter treats mainly of writers still living. These 
are divided into eleven sections: 1. The Poets, beginning with Long- 
fellow ; 2. Writers on Literature and Criticism, beginning with Low- 
ell ; 3. Magazinists, beginning witli Holmes ; 4. Journalists, beginning 
with Bennett ; 5. Humorists, beginning with Artemus Ward ; 6. Mis- 
cellaneous Writers, beginning with Bayard Taylor; 7. Novelists 
and Writers of Tales and Travels, beginning with Hawthorne ; 8. His- 
torians, beginning with Prescott ; 9. Writers on Politics and Political 
Economy, beginning with Henry C. Carey ; 10. Scientific Writers, be- 
ginning with Agassiz ; 11. Writers on Eeligion and Theology, begin- 
ning with Hodge. 



I. THE POETS. 



Longfellow. 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, LL. D., 1807 , is by general 

consent the most distinguished living representative of the poetical 
literature of the country. He is clearly our American Poet-Laureate, 
— crowned by general sufirage, alike of the learned and the unlearned, 
the critic and those who read for the pleasure only that his sweet verse 
gives them. 

Prof. Longfellow began publication very early. Several of his 
poems which appeared before he was yet nineteen, and while still a 
student in college, have been retained in the collected edition of his 
works. One of these college poems was the Plymn of the Moravian 
Nuns of Bethlehem, which early found its way into the reading-books 
of the common schools. 

23 265 



iH| 



266 AMEEICAN LITEEATUEE. 

His first volume, 1833, was Coplas de Manrique, — a translation 
from the Spanish, with an Essay on the Moral and Devotional Poetry 
of Spain. 

His next volume, 1835, was Outre-Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the 
Sea. It was a poetical prose work, not unlike the Sketch-Book of 
Washington Irving. 

A third volume, also of poetical prose, was Hyperion, a Romance, 
1839. 

The same year appeared Voices of the Night, a collection of short 
poems, containing among others A Psalm of Life, The Eeaper and the 
Flowers, and The Beleaguered City. 

In 1841, appeared Ballads and other Poems, containing several 
pieces which attained immediate and lasting favor, such as The Skel- 
eton in Armor, God' a- Acre, To the River Charles, Blind Bartimeus, 
and Excelsior. 

Poems on Slavery appeared in 1842, and in the same year The 
Spanish Student, a Play, of which the sale has been large. 

In 1845, he published The Poets and Poetry of Europe, a large 
octavo, containing biographical and critical notices, and translations 
by himself and others. 

The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems appeared in 1846. The 
most noted of the pieces in this collection were The Arsenal at Spring- 
field, and The Old Clock on the Stairs. 

Evangeline, his first long poem, was published in 1847. 

Kavanagh, a prose tale, descriptive of New England life, appeared 
in 1849. The same year witnessed the publication of Seaside and 
Fireside, a collection of short poems. Among these were The Build- 
ing of the Ship, Resignation, and Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass. 

The Golden Legend, his longest single ijoera, was issued in 1851. 
It is a narrative poem, giving a lively picture of monastic and civil 
life in the Middle Ages, and is remarkable for its variety of style and 
versification. 

The Song of Hiawatha, another long poem, appeared in 1855. Like 
Evangeline, it attracted universal attention, both by the freshness of 
its subject and the novelty of its versification. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish, another long poem, also immedi- 
ately popular, appeared in 1858. 

Tales of a Wayside Inn, a collection of poems somewhat after the 
fashion of the Canterbury Tales, was published in 1863. The pieces 
in this collection which are best known are Paul Revere's Ride, and 
the Birds of Killingworth. A continuation of these Tales, called Tlie 
Second Day, appeared in 1872. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 267 

Another collection appeared under the title of Birds of Passage, 
among its exquisite gems being The Children's Hour, and Weariness ; 
and in 1866 was published a volume called Flower-de-Luce and other 
Poems. 

Since that time have appeared New England Tragedies, and the 
Divine Tragedy. These last, it is said, are to be taken in connection 
with The Golden Legend, published twenty years ago, the whole 
forming one connected work of art, somewhat as do the successive 
Arthurian legends of Tennyson. 

In 1867, appeared the translation of Dante's Divina Commedia, in 
three superb octavos. It is the crowning achievement of Mr. Long- 
fellow's remarkable skill as a translator. 

From this rapid sketch it appears that Mr. Longfellow has been ac- 
tively and almost continuously productive as an author for almost half 
a century. His longer poems, The Golden Legend, Evangeline, Hia- 
watha, Miles Standish, The Spanish Student, and the translation of 
Dante, are familiarly known to all readers of English poetry. Each 
of his many collections of short pieces has contained some which 
have become household words wherever the English tongue is spoken. 
His utterances are in the middle key, between the matter-of-fact and 
the highly ideal. His verse is always tender and delicate, unobtru- 
sively winning its way to the heart. It is the chosen companion of 
our quiet, unbent moods. 

\Vhittier. 

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1808 , is our leading lyric poet, and, 

with the exception perhaps of Bryant, is the one most thoroughly 
American. In Mr. Whittier's poems, the life, the scenes, the charac- 
ters portrayed, the very atmosphere in which they move, are all in- 
tensely American. He has been called the Quaker Poet, in reference 
to his religious views and connections, and he has certainly earned for 
himself the title of Abolitionist, by his fierce anti-slavery philippics. 
Yet much of his best poetry, and especially tliat of his later years, 
shows him possessed of a large and truly catholic spirit, which finds 
its way to the heart of every reader. 

As a poet Whittier first appeared in 1831, when he published his 
Legends of New England, in Prose and Verse. The majority of his 
early poems were first published as fugitive pieces in newspapers and 
other periodicals, and afterwards re-issued in collections, from time to 
time. Thus appeared The Ballads, 1838; Lays of My Home, 1843; 
The Voices of Freedom, 1849 ; The Chapel of the Hermits, 1853 ; The 



268 



AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



i^il 



Panorama and Other Poems, 1856 ; Home Ballads, 1860 ; In War Time, 
1863; National Lyrics, 1865. Mogg Megone and Moll Pitcher ap- 
peared separately in 1836. 

Whittier's latest productions are Snow-Bound, The Tent on tlie 
Beach, Among the Hills, and Ballads of New England, which have 
all appeared since 1866. 

Bryant. 

William Cullen Bryant, 1794 , by the publication of Thanatop- 

sis, acquired, almost sixty years ago, a national reputation as a poet, 
and he has continued at brief intervals ever since to add to his laurels 
by some new eifort, showing that his fire is not yet extinct, nor his 
vigor abated. His poems are not so numerous or so varied as those 
of Whittier or Longfellow, yet he is as clearly among the great poets 
that every American involuntarily claims as a part of the national 
inheritance. 

Mr. Bryant's poems have appeared from time to time as occasional 
contributions to the magazines, and have had a singular uniformity of 
excellence. They all show care and finish, and original observation. 
No English poet, living or dead, has been a more accurate observer of 
nature, as any one may prove who will take a volume of his poems 
out into the woods and fields, and read the descriptions in the very 
presence of what is described. 



»ii 



Boker. 

George Henry Boker, 1824 , has succeeded better than any other 

American author in the difficult line of dramatic composition. His 
principal plays, Calaynos, Anne Boleyn, Leonor de Guzman, and 
Francesca da Eimini, tragedies, are all conceived on the highest type 
of the regular drama, and are truly classical performances. In addi- 
tion to his dramatic compositions, he has written several other long 
poems, besides numerous short lyrics of great excellence. 

Mr. Boker has not been a prolific writer, yet something considerable 
from his pen every few years shows that he has not been idle ; and 
every new addition to his list of works has been such as to increase the 
admiration of the public for his poetic genius. Carefully avoiding 
whatever is of a sensational character, and resolutely refusing to cater 
to a false taste, even at the risk of some loss of temporary notoriety, 
he has wrought slowly and laboriously, after the highest ideals of ex- 
cellence, calmly awaiting the final verdict of assured success. The 
tendency of his mind, as already remarked, is towards the dramatic 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 269 

form of composition, and his first signal success, the tragedy of Calav- 
nos, was in that line. As a lyric poet, however, and especially as a 
•writer of Sonnets, his merits are of a high order. The following is a 
list of his principal publications : Calaynos, a Tragedy ; Anne Boleyn, 
a Tragedy ; Leonor de Guzman, a Tragedy ; The Betrothal ; The Po- 
desta's Daughter; The Ivory Carver; A Ballad of Sir John Franklin; 
Song of the Earth ; Street Lyrics ; and a large number of Sonnets, 
Songs, and minor poems. 

Buchanan Read. 

Thomas Buchanan Eead, 1822-1872, is almost equally celebrated as 
an artist and a poet, and is familiarly known as the Poet-Painter. He 
published several long poems, as The New Pastoral, and The House 
by the Sea, but the short lyrics contained in his Lays and Ballads 
are those on which chiefly his reputation rests. 

Mr. Bead's shorter pieces have been collected and published in va- 
rious forms, both in England and the United States, and have received 
the warmest commendations. They- constitute indeed his highest 
claims to fame. His lyrics are his greatest works. Sheridan's Ride 
is one of the few things written during the heat of the war that is 
likely to survive. Others of his short pieces, though not so widely 
known as this, are hardly inferior to it in merit. 

John G. Saxe. 

John Godfrey Saxe, LL. D., 1816 , has a national reputation as 

a humorous poet. His poem of The Proud Miss McBride is familiar 
to every reader. Among his other well known pieces are The Money 
King, Ehyme of the Bail, The Flying Dutchman, The Masquerade. 
He excels in light, easy verse, and in unexpected, if not absolutely 
punning, turns of expression. In the general style and effect of his 
comic pieces he strongly reminds one of Thomas Hood. 

Saxe, it must be observed, is one of the very few thoroughly na- 
tional poets, in this sense, that his themes and the atmosphere of his 
verse are almost exclusively American. 

Dr. Holland. 

Josiah Gilbert Holland, M. D., 1819 , after becoming widely 

and favorably known as a prose writer, under the name of Timothy 
Titcomb, rose suddenly to fame as a poet, by the publication of two 
poems, Bitter Sweet, and Kathrina. Both these poems, especially the 

23* 



270 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

latter, were received with an immediate and general favor almost un- 
precedented. 

As a prose writer, Dr. Holland is admitted bj all to be one of our 
best. As a poet, be lias received mach adverse, and some unkind 
criticism. His Katbrina doubtless is open to criticism. Yet it is idle 
to deny to this poem great and distinguishing merit. The author, a.t 
all events, may console himself with the fact, that while the critics 
flout, the people read and buy. iSTo American poem, with the single 
exception of Longfellow's Hiawatha, has had such tangible evidences 
of popularity. The sale of Katbrina in the first six months was 
40,000 copies, and it has since gone beyond 60,000. Many of Dr. 
Holland's other works have enjoyed a like popularity. 

James T. Fields. 

James T. Fields, 1820 , the well-known Boston bookseller, is 

the author of two volumes of poems and of a series of charming prose 
sketches, called Yesterdays Avitli Authors. 

Alfred B. Street. 

Alfred Billings Street, 1811 , is one of the best descriptive poets 

of which American literature has to boast. His descriptions of forest 
life, especially, are wonderfully graphic and true to nature. His longest 
work, Frontenac, is a narrative poem, being a tale of the Iroquois. 
The poem which is best known, and which on the whole is the most 
effective, is the Gray Forest Eagle. 

Henry Lynden Flash. 

Henry Lynden Flash, 1837 , of Alabama, published, in 1860, 

a volume of Poems of uncommon power and beauty. During and 
since the war, he has made various contributions to periodical litera- 
ture, but has published no additional volumes. 

Mrs. Margaret J. Preston. 

Mrs. Margaret Junkin Preston, , of Lexington, Va., is at 

this time the sweetest singer of the Old Dominion. She has never 
made literature a profession, yet she has been for twenty-five years a 
frequent contributor to the magazines, and she has published three 
volumes of poems which have been received Avith marked favor. The 
most considerable of tliese was Beechenbrook, a Ehyme of the Wax. 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 271 

The Gary Sisters. 

Alice and Phoebe Gary were so connected in their lives, and are so 
linked together in the recollections of the public, that no record of 
either can be truthful or complete without containing at the same 
time a record of the other. They will be noticed therefore together. 

Alice Gary, 1820-1871, and Phcebe Gary, 1824-1871, were born 
on a farm, eight miles north of Gincinnati. They had no advantages of 
early education, except the usual attendance upon the district school. 

The sisters were unlike in mind and body. Alice was possessed 
of extreme delicacy, was timid in disposition and feeble in health. 
Phoebe was possessed of robust health, was self-reliant, and had no 
small share of humor and wit. 

In 1851, their mother being dead, and the family broken up, the 
sisters, aged respectively thirty-one and twenty-seven, with no means 
of support but their brains and their fingers, went to New York to 
make a living by literature. Instead of boarding, they rented a small, 
cheap house, and set up housekeeping, and there, by economy, and 
by dint of hard work, they managed to keep the wolf at bay. Grad- 
ually signs of thrift appeared ; and eventually they lived in a house 
of their own, not large or showy, but comfortable, and paid for by 
the labor of their hands. 

They wrote chiefly for the New York Tribune, and Independent, 
though not confining themselves to these periodicals, and appearing 
in frequent volumes, both prose and verse. 

Of the separate publications, those of Alice are : Hagar, a novel ; 
Lyra and Other Poems ; Glovernook ; Married, not Mated, a novel ; 
Poems ; Pictures of, Country Life, prose ; A Lover's Diary. The sep- 
arate volumes by Phoebe are : Poems and Parodies ; Poems of Faith, 
Hope and Eesignation. 

Mrs. E. C. Kinney. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Glementine Kinney, , wife of the Hon. 

William B. Kinney, long United States Minister to Sardinia, is gifted 
with fine poetic talents, and is the author of numerous lyrics which 
in 1867 were published in a volume. One of these. The Italian Beg- 
gar Boy, appeared originally in Blackwood, and has been much ad- 
mired. 

While in Italy, Mrs. Kinney published Felicita, a romance in verse, 
three hundred pages. After her return, she published two volumes 
of Poems. She has for the last twenty-five years contributed, both in 
prose and verse, to the periodicals. 



272 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

A. D. F. Randolph. 

Anson D. F. Kandolpli, 1820 , a bookseller of New York, has 

■written some beautiful lyrics, which, after having gone the rounds of 
the newspapers, were collected by a brother in the craft, Mr. Charles 
Scribner, and published in a dainty volume, under the title of Hope- 
fully Waiting. 

Bret Harte. 

Francis Bret Harte, 1837 , is one of the few poets that have 

risen to fame by a single bound. His Heathen Chinee and his Con- 
densed Novels took the public by surprise, and marked the author at 
once as a man of . genius. His publications in book form, since the 
appearance of Condensed Novels, have been The Luck of Koaring 
Camp and other Stories, and three volumes of Poems. 

Joaquin Miller. 

Cincinnatus Heine Miller, 1841 , better known as " Joaquin " 

Miller, is another Western celebrity, whose appearance above the 
horizon was even more sudden and meteoric than that of Bret Harte. 
Miller's Songs of the Sierras, published in London in 1871, made him 
before the end of the year famous in both continents. They created 
a sensation which has hardly been equalled since the time of Byron. 



II. WRITERS ON LITERATURE AND CRITICISM. 

Lo-well. 

James Eussell Lowell, 1819 , excels in so many lines of effort 

that it is not easy to know in what class of writers to place him. The 
Cathedral and Under the Willows give him rank among our foremost 
poets. The Bigelow Papers show him to be inferior to none in hu- 
morous satire. His latest and most consummate efforts, however, as 
given in the two volumes Among My Books, and My Study Win- 
dows, seem to point to literary criticism as that in which he has 
achieved his greatest success. 

As a satirist, LoweU has no equal in his own country, perhaps not 
among English writers of the century. His satire is not broad, like 
that of Saxe and Holmes, but quaint and subtle. The Bigelow Pa- 
pers,, written in Yankee dialect, have one special merit. They give 
that dialect in all its native raciness and truth, and expose the hol- 
lowness of such doggerel as Sam Slick's, which, by the side of the 
Bigelow Papers, sinks down into the merest every-day vulgarism. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 273 

As a critic, Lowell stands foremost among his countrymen. Others 
have equalled him in erudition, but no one has succeeded so happily 
in blending profound and wide study with exquisite sympathy for the 
author or the work discussed. The only objection that can be urged 
against his literary essays is that the author occasionally sacrifices an 
exact shade of truth for a neat point. The truth is stated substan- 
tially, but thrown into the background by a brilliant corruscation of 
wit. 

Tuckerman. 

Henry Theodore Tuckerman, 1813-1871, was one of the ablest, as 
well as one of the most prolific of American writers on subjects con- 
nected with criticism. He was almost equally celebrated also as a 
biographer and a poet. His largest and best-known works are. Artist 
Life, and Essays Biographical and Critical. 

Whipple. 

Edwin Percy Whipple, 1819 , is probably, next to Lowell, the 

most capable as well as the most popular American critic and essay- 
ist. His two volumes entitled Character and Characteristic Men, and 
his volume on The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, are the publi- 
cations by which he has gained the greatest applause. 

Kate Field. 

Kate Field, , has published but one volume, Pen-Photo- 
graphs of Dickens's Peadings, but she is very widely and favorably 
known as a critic on art and literature, and as a lecturer. 

Moses Colt Tyler. 

Moses Coit Tyler, 1835 , Professor of the English Language 

and Literature in the University of Llichigan, has made some admi- 
rable contributions to current literature. 

Prof. Tyler's publications, besides numerous articles in the news- 
papers, have been as follows : An Account of Vassar College ; Popular 
Lecturing in England ; The Brownville Papers, a volume of essays 
on physical culture. 

Richard Grant White. 

Eichard Grant White, 1822 , is well known as the ablest 

Shakespearian editor and critic that has yet appeared in America. 



274 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

His first essay in this line was a large octavo, Shakespeare's Scholar, 
in 1862, being historical and critical studies of the text, characters, 
and commentators, with an examination of Mr. Collier's Folio' of 
1632. This volume gave the author at once a high standing as a 
Shakespeare critic. It was folloAved in 1859 by An Essay on the 
Authorship of the Three Parts of King Henry VI. These works were 
preliminary to a larger one, namely, A New and Independent Critical 
Edition of Shakespeare's Works. This appeared in 1857-1865, in 12 
vols., ,8vo. It is a noble monument of taste and scholarship, and con- 
tains all that any ordinary reader wants for studying and enjoying 
Shakespeare. In connection with this, but as an independent work, 
appeared A Life of Shakespeare, with an essay on his genius and on 
the rise of the English drama. 

Duyekinek Brothers. 

The brothers Evart A. and George L. Duyckinck have bestowed 
a lasting benefit upon American letters by their invaluable work, The 
Encyclopaedia of American Literature. This work, in two large vol- 
umes, double-column octavo, is modelled after Chambers's Encyclo- 
paedia of English Literature, but for thoroughness and every other de- 
sirable quality is superior to Chambers's. The Duyckincks' work may 
be supplemented (the continual and rapid growth of our literature 
requires this), but it can never be superseded. It is the best, in fact 
the only, comprehensive and adequate exposition of American litera- 
ture to the date of its publication, 1856. A new edition brings the 
work down to 1873. 

Allibone. 

Samuel Austin Allibone, LL. D., 1816 , has made the entire 

literary world his debtors by his great work, the Dictionary of Authors. 
This is in 3 vols,, large 8vo, filling 3,140 closely printed pages, and 
containing over 46,000 authors, with 40 Indexes of subjects. The plan 
is to give a short life of each author, accompanied by a list of his pub- 
lications, and extracts from the opinions of the best critics in regard 
to his standing and character. The work abounds also in literary 
anecdotes and curious information of an authentic character in regard 
to authors and authorship. As a mine of information on the subject 
of which it treats, it is unparalleled. By solitary and single-handed 
labor, protracted through twenty years, the author has achieved a 
work such as ordinarily is accomplished only by the joint effort of a 
large number of laborers working in concert; and the result is a mon- 
ument of patient and productive industry which has few parallels in 
literary history. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 275 

James Wood Davidson. 

Prof. James Wood Davidson, 1829 , has done a signal service 

to letters by his exceedingly interesting and able work, The Living 
Writers of the South. This work, in its 635 well-filled pages, contains 
an amount and kind of information on the subject of which it treats 
that is nowhere else to be obtained. 



III. MAGAZINISTS. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D., 1809 , like many others named 

in the present chapter, excels in several departments. He is by pro- 
fession a medical lecturer, and ranks high as a writer on medical sci- 
ence, producing on one occasion three prize dissertations in two suc- 
cessive years. He has won great praise also as a poet. But his 
greatest and most enduring fame, undoubtedly, is that acquired as a 
writer of magazine articles. Were there a laureate for this line of art, 
as there is for poetry. Holmes beyond all question would wear the bays. 
1^0 Kving magazinist, English or American, can equal him. His 
A utocrat at the Breakfast Table and its successors, are fully up to the 
Koctes Ambrosianse of Blackwood when Wilson was in his prime. 
Holmes's other best known works are The Professor at the Breakfast 
Table, Elsie Venner, and The Guardian Angel. 

James Parton. 

James Parton, 1822 , is a magazinist of the first order, although 

he has not the exuberant wit and fancy which in conjunction with the 
more solid qualities make Holmes supreme. Mr. Parton is, perhaps, 
the only American author who has made magazine-writing a profes- 
sion. He has pursued it for a long series of years with continued and 
undivided devotion, and his success has been commensurate with his 
zeal. 

Xo magazinist of the day writes more readable articles. His judg- 
ment, however, is not always equal to his faculty of making a subject 
interesting, so that his opinions are received with some distrust, though 
he is always sure of an audience. He has a vigorous imagination, ap- 
prehends with wonderful clearness what he wants to say, and says it 
in such a way that it is difficult not to take his meaning ; and witlial 
he has an instinctive sagacity for knowing what points in any given 
subject are likely to interest the general reader. He usually writes 



276 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

long articles, yet he is never dull ; he makes even statistics entertain- 
ing. 

Mr. Parton's separate volumes are mostly biographies, while his 
magazine articles are usually special studies of the current topics of 
the day. He has published extended Biographies of Horace Greeley, 
Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, John Jacob Astor, 
and Thomas Jefferson. 

Mrs. Parton,— '^ Fanny Fern." 

Mrs. Sarah Payson (Willis) Parton, 1811-1872, under the name of 
" Fanny Fern," acquired, and for a long series of years maintained, a 
reputation almost unique as a writer of short, spicy articles on topics 
of the day. 

The first distinct recognition of her extraordinary merit came from 
Mr. Bonner, of the New York Ledger, who boldly engaged her to 
write a story for that paper at the extraordinary price of a hundred 
dollars a column, and was so well pleased with his bargain that he con- 
tracted with her to write for him, on the same terms, a weekly article, 
which she continued to do for eighteen years, without ever missing 
for a single week. 

These sprightly essays were worked up, from time to time, into vol- 
umes with fancy names, and had a large sale in this separate forni, 
besides the enormous circulation which they had in the Ledger. 
The names of these books are Fern Leaves, First and Second Series ; 
Fresh Leaves ; Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends ; The Play 
Book ; Folly as it Flies ; and Ginger Snaps. 

About the time of her engagement with Mr. Bonner, she published, 
in quick succession, two novels, Euth Hall, and Eosa Clark, which 
made a great sensation, and sold largely. It was thought at that time 
that she would become a regular novelist. But the short, pithy essay 
was evidently her forte, and she wisely adhered to it. 

Mary Abigail Dodge, — '*^ Gail Hamilton." 

Mary Abigail Dodge, 1838 , known as " Gail Hamilton," is one 

of the most brilliant contributors to current literature. Her contribu- 
tions usually appear first in the weekly or monthly magazines, and 
afterwards are collected into volumes. The best known of these are 
Gala Days ; Country Living ; Skirmishes and Sketches ; Eed Letter 
Days ; Wool Gathering ; Woman's Worth and Worthlessness. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PEESENT TIME. 277 

George W. Curtis. 

George William Curtis, 1824 , is known all over the land, and 

for that matter pretty much all over the world, or at least wherever 
the English language is spoken, by his writings in the three great 
magazines published by the Harpers. He is the political editor of 
the Yfeekly, fills the Easy Chair of the Monthly, and writes Manners 
upon the Eoad for the Bazar. His writings in these periodicals, as 
any one may see by a glance at the annual table of contents, would 
fill at least a score of volumes. 

Mr. Curtis's separate publications have been the following: Nile 
Notes of a Howadji; The Howadji in Syria; Lotus-Eating; The Poti- 
phar Papers ; Prue and I ; Trumps. 

W. D. Howells. 

William Deane Howells, 1837 , editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 

like a good many others of the craft, began his career as a practical 
printer, and has worked his way up to his present distinguished posi- 
tion by dint of labor and brains. 

Mr. Howells' s publications thus far are the following : Poems of Two 
Friends (W. D. Howells and J. J. Piatt) ; No Love Lost, a Eomance 
of Travel, in hexameter verse ; Life of Abraham Lincoln ; Venetian 
Life ; Italian Journeys ; and Suburban Sketches. 

Col. T. W. Higginson. 

Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1823 , has been a fa- 
vorite contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. His volumes, Out-Door 
Papers, Malbone an Oldport Eomance, and others, made up of maga- 
zine articles, are held in high esteem. 

J. T. Trowbridge. 

John Townsend Trowbridge, 1827 , a favorite contributor to 

the Atlantic Monthly and the Young Folks, and at present editor of 
the latter magazine, is known also as the author of the popular poem 
called The Vagabonds, and of numerous popular tales and novels. 

The following are some of his best known publications : The Bright- 
hope Series ; Martin Merivale, His ><) Mark ; Neighbor Jackwood ; 
Cudjoe's Cave* Coupon Bonds; The Vagabonds, and other Poems. 
24 



278 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

Gen. Hill. 

Gen. Daniel Harvey Hill, 1824 , a distinguished officer in the 

Confederate army during the war, has acquired almost equal distinc- 
tion since the war as a magazinist. His magazine, The Land We 
Love, is said to be the most successful, as it is the ablest, monthly 
published in the South. 

Gen. Hill has published the following works: Essays from the 
Quarterly Review ; Essays from the Southern Presbyterian Review ; 
Algebra. His chief literary work, however, has been done in the 
magazine already mentioned, The Land We Love. 

IV. JOURNALISTS. 

James Gordon Bennett. 

James Gordon Bennett, 1800-1872, the founder of the New York 
Herald, initiated a new era in journalism. He was followed, indeed, 
in close succession by Mr. Greeley, and at a somewhat later interval 
by Mr. Raymond. But to Mr. Bennett clearly belongs the honor of 
making the first movement in this direction. After having embarked 
in the enterprise, he made it his one, undivided ambition, to achieve 
success as a journalist, and he realized, in this respect, the full extent 
of his ambition. 

Horace Greeley. 

Horace Greeley, 1811-1872, divides with Mr. Bennett the credit of 
initiating the new type of journalism which was introduced in the last 
generation. Mr. Greeley had other ambitions. But the main work 
of his life was the founding of the New York Tribune. 

Besides his work as a journalist, or rather in connection with it, 
and as its legitimate offshoots, Mr. Greeley published several valuable 
works, and did much as a popular lecturer. The following is a list 
of his principal separate publications: Hints towards Reforms; 
Glances at Europe ; Art and Industry, as represented in the Exhi- 
bition of the Crystal Palace ; Association Discussed ; What I Know 
of Farming ; History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension ; The 
American Conflict ; Recollections of a Busy Life, etc. 

Henry J. Raymond. 

Henry Jarvis Raymond, LL.D., 1820-1869, acquired great and 
deserved celebrity as the founder and editor of the New York Times. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 279 

Of all the conspicuous enterprises in that line which have marked 
the last thirty years, his paper was the only one which was successful 
from the beginning. He was also one of the small, though now grow- 
ing, number of eminent journalists who had a regular classical edu- 
cation. 

The New York Times began its existence in September, 1851, and 
was successful from the first. The capital invested in it was one 
hundred thousand dollars. At the end of eight years, the proprietors 
refused for their property the offer of one million of dollars. This 
wonderful success was undoubtedly due in no small degree to the Kt- 
erary and intellectual character and labors of Mr. Raymond. He 
was the inspiring soul of the enterprise, and from the time of its in- 
ception to the time of his death, he was its editor-in-chief. 

Men of all parties award Mr. Raymond the praise of having been 
one of the most accomplished and successful of American journalists. 
He did a great service to the profession by elevating the tone of 
newspaper discussion, showing by his own example that it was pos- 
sible to be earnest and brilliant without transgressing the laws of 
decorum. 

His literary productiveness was prodigious. His articles, though 
necessarily dashed off in haste, were often of a high order of literary 
merit, and would fill a large number of volumes. As an evidence 
of his power of concentration and of rapid production in cases of 
emergency, it may be mentioned that on the occasion of the death 
of Daniel Webster, the Times for the following day, October 25th, 
1852, contained a biography of Webster, twenty-six columns in length, 
every word of which was written and put in type in the few hours 
intervening between the news that Webster was dying and the hour 
that the paper went to press. Of that remarkable biographical sketch, 
sixteen columns were written by Mr. Eaymond himself, in a space of 
less than half a day ! 

W. H. Hurlbut. 

William Henry Hurlbut, 1827 , of the New York World, is 

probably, of all the living journalists of America, who have made 
journalism a distinct and exclusive profession, the one most highly 
educated, as he is the most brilliant and versatile. Unlike some of 
our other leading journalists, he has had every advantage which edu- 
cation and opportunity could bestow. Besides a thorough classical and 
academic training, and familiarity with the languages and literatures 
of the leading nations of Europe, he has had large experience of 



280 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

ij 
i travel and of intercourse with men in all the great centres of power. 

These advantages he utilizes to the last degree, and he' throws him- 
1 j self into the work of writing, on the exigencies of the hour, with a 

i ' fulness of resource and an abandon of effort that are marvellous. 

Mr. Hurlbut has published several volumes, but his chief work is 
what he has done and is doing as a journalist. 

E. L. Godkin. 

Edwin L. Godkin, 1831 , editor of the Nation, represents still 

^j| another element of American journalism, appreciably different from 

' any of those already named. In a paper such as the Nation, news 

is no longer king. Independent and trustworthy criticism on the 
living issues of the day form the one predominating element in a 
periodical of this kind, and for such a function Mr. Godkin has ac- 
knowledged aptitudes of a high order. 

Beyond a few articles in the Quarterlies, on political and commer- 
cial topics, Mr. Godkin's literary work has been done wholly for the 
newspaper press. The paper with which he is more particularly 
identified as an American writer is the Nation, already mentioned. 

Parke Godwin. 

Parke Godwin, LL, D., 1816 , has acquired distinction in sev- 
eral walks of authorship, but is chiefly known by his connection with 
the New York Evening Post, of which he has been at different times 
the associate editor. 

Mr, Godwin, besides his newspaper and magazine articles, is the 
author of several separate volumes. Among them may be named the 
following : A Popular View of the Doctrines of Charles Fourier ; Out 
of the Past, a collection of papers on literature and criticism ; A His- 
tory of France. The work last named is the one on which he has 
spent most labor and study. It is not a mere compilation, or rehash 
of old materials, but is written from original investigation, and in- 
tended as a classical work. The first volume, giving a history of 
Ancient Gaul down to the time of Charlemagne, was published in 
1860. 

John R. Thompson. 

John E. Thompson, 1823 , long connected with the Southern 

Literary Messenger, and now with the New York Evening Post, has 
done good service to the periodical literature of the country. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 281 

George D. Prentice. 

George Denison Prentice, 1 802-1870, for forty years editor of the 
Louisville Journal, holds a conspicuous place among American jour- 
nalists. 

Prentice's witticisms have become proverbial. A selection of them 
was made and published in book-form in 1859, under the title of 
Prenticeiana. 

George Ripley. 

George Eiplev, 1802 , has done service to American literature 

in many ways. He was, with C. A. Dana, associate editor of Apple- 
ton's American Encyclopsedia. But his chief work has been per- 
formed in connection with the Xew York Tribune, where for the last 
twenty-four years he has held the post of literary critic. His separate 
publications are the following: Discourses on the Philosophy of Keli- 
gion ; Letters to Andrew Norton on the Latest Form of Infidelity ; 
Specimens of Foreign Literature (edited), 14 vols.; with Bayard 
Taylor, Hand-Book of Literature and the Fine Arts. 

Charles A. Dana. 

Charles Anderson Dana, 1819 , editor of the New York Sun, 

has been prominent as a journalist for more than twenty years past. 
He was associated with George Kipley in editing Appleton's Cyclopae- 
dia, and he edited the Household Book of Poetry. He was for a long 
time prominent in the editorial management of the New York Tri- 
bune ; and after leaving that paper he assumed the editorship of the 
New York Sun, in which position he still continues. 

Charles J. Biddle. 

Major Charles John Biddle, 1819 , editor of The Age, is a 

leading representative of journalism in Philadelphia. 

Morton McMiehael. 

Morton McMiehael, 1807 , the veteran of the North American, 

has been a prominent journalist and magazine writer for nearly half 
a century. 

John W. Forney. 

John Weiss Forney, 1817 , is known as a journalist in connec- 
tion with his two papers, the Press of Philadelphia, and the Chroni- 
cle of Washington. 
24* 



282 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

R. Shelton Mackenzie. 

Eobert Shelton Mackenzie, D. C. L., LL. D., 1809 , is the author 

of several works, both prose and verse, but is chiefly known as a jour- 
nalist, and in connection with the Philadelphia Press. 

Of his separate publications the following are the chief: Lavs of 
Palestine; Titian, an art novel, 3 vols. ; Mornings at Matlock, a col- 
lection of stories, 3 vols, ; Bits of Blarney ; Life of Charles Dickens ; 
Life of Walter Scott. Dr. Mackenzie has edited a valuable series of 
works, enrichhig them with notes from his own recollections and 
reading. The following are the principal works which he has edited : 
JSToctes Ambrosianae, 5 vols. ; Dr. Maginn's Writings, 5 vols. ; Shiel's 
Sketches of the Irish Bar, 2 vols. 

George Alfred Townsend. 

George Alfred Townsend, 1841 , the " Gath " of the Chicago 

Tribune, has had a large and varied experience as a War Corre- 
spondent, both in Europe and America, and has written for nearly all 
the leading journals, — the ^N'ew York Herald, World, Cincinnati 
Commercial, Chicago Tribune, and others of like standing. 

Since 1868 he has been in the exclusive employment of the Chicago 
Tribune, the leading newspaper of the Northwest, writing both edi- 
torial and correspondence, the latter over the signature of " Gath." 

Of Mr. Townsend's sei3arate publications, in book form, the follow- 
ing are the chief: Campaigns of a Xon-Combatant and his Romaunt 
abroad during the War ; the Story of the Conspiracy against the 
Lives of the Executive Officers of the LTnited States in 1865 ; The 
New World compared with the Old, a description of the American 
Government, its institutions, and enterprises, and the corresponding 
features of European Governments, England and France particularly, 
a book of more than 700 octavo pages ; Lost Abroad, a romaunt and 
tale of American character in Europe during our Civil War, about 
500 pages. 

Wliitelaw Reid. 

Whitelaw Eeid, 1839 '■, Managing Editor of the New York 

Tribune, first made his mark in literature as a newspaper Correspon- 
dent, under the signature of Agate. 

Mr. Eeid has written two books : one, After the War, gives a graphic 
account of the condition of the Sou'h in the years 1865-6 ; the other, 
Ohio in the War (2 vols., 8vo, 1090 pages each), besides being an 
eloquent tribute to his native State, was prepared with such pains- 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 283 

taking and elaborate research as to form a valuable addition to the 
history of the epoch. 

The New York Associated Press. 

The Associated Press is simply a partnership for the collection of 
news, and consists of the proprietors of the New York Herald, Tribune, 
Times, World, Journal of Commerce, Sun, and Express. These jour- 
nalists own the Institution, and theoretically control its affairs, though 
its details, in fact, are managed chiefly by its General Agent (or 
Superintendent) acting under the immediate direction of an Executive 
Committee, to whom the General Agent appeals for advice when 
necessary. 

Edward Eggleston. 

Edward Eggleston, D. D., 1837 , lately editor of the New York 

Independent, and now of Hearth and Home, has shown eminent fit- 
ness for the work of journalism, and has been uniformly successful in 
his various enterprises in that line. 

Among his published works are the following : Sunday-School Con- 
ventions and Institute ; Sunday-School Manual ; Mr, Blake's Walking 
Stick, a Christmas Story for Boys and Girls ; . The Book of Queer 
Stories ; The Hoosier Schoolmaster. All these books have been pop- 
ular, and have sold largely. 

Samuel Irenaeus Prime. 

Samuel Irenseus Prime, D. T)., 1812 , is the author of several 

interesting volumes, but is chiefly known by his writings and labors 
for the past thirty-two years as editor of the New York Observer. 

Theodore Tilton. 

Theodore Tilton, 1835 , is the author of several volumes which 

have commanded attention. His chief work, however, thus far, has 
been in the line of journalism, for many years in the New York Inde- 
pendent, and now in his own paper, The Golden Age. 

V. THE HUMORISTS. 

C. F. Browne. — ^^ Artemus Ward." 

Charles Foster Browne, 1836-1867, became widely known, both in 
England and America, by his humorous conception of Artemus Ward, 



284 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

"the genial showman." So complete was his conception of this char- 
acter, and his representation of it in his writings, that it has become 
difficult for the public to realize that Artemus Ward was not a real, 
historical personage, or that there was behind him any such being as 
the writer, Mr. C. F. Browne. Artemus Ward is to us the living man, 
Mr. Browne the myth. This species of writing does not belong to the 
highest kind of art. Yet there is in it a peculiar dramatic power, as 
clearly creative as anything in Shakespeare, 

His works have been collected into the following volumes : Artemus 
Ward, his Book; Artemus Ward, his Panorama; Artemus Ward 
among the Mormons ; Artemus Ward among the Fenians ; Artemus 
Ward in London. The work entitled Artemus Ward in England was 
published after his death, and contains an entertaining biographical 
sketch. 

S. L. Clemens, — ^^ Mark Twain." 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835 , who writes under the name 

of " Mark Twain," set the whole continent in a roar by his volume, 
The Innocents Abroad, giving a humorous description of a visit to the 
old world by a ship-load of American excursionists. 

He has in press a volume of Nevada and Californian Experiences, 
of the same size and style as Innocents Abroad, and illustrated in the 
same manner. 

B. P. Shillaber, — ^^Mrs. Partington.'' 

Benjamin P. Shillaber, 1814 , by his conception of the charac- 
ter of Kuth Partington, has entitled himself to a place among genuine 
humorists. The old lady has become, indeed, in the public mind, a 
living personage, almost as distinctly as Artemus Ward himself. 

H. W. Shaw, ~^^ Josh Billings." 

Henry W. Shaw, 1818 , has acquired no little notoriety as a 

writer and " lecturer," under the assumed name of " Josh Billings." 
He has published, in book form, Sayings of Josh Billings, Josh Bil- 
lings on Ice, Josh Billings's Farmer's Allminax, all of which have had 
an enormous circulation. 

Charles G. Leland. 

Charles Godfrey Leland, 1824 , opened a new vein of humor 

by his conception of Hans Breitmann, a carousing, but shrewd, money- 
loving German immigrant, of a class that prevailed to a considerable 



_)* 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 285 

extent before and during the war. His chief publications have been 
the Breitmann Ballads, Meister Karl's Sketch Book, and The Poetry 
and Mystery of Dreams. 

Seba Smith, — ^^ Major Jack Downing." 

Seba Smith, 1792-1868, the "Jack Downing" of the last generation, 
belongs chronologically to the preceding chapter. But his writings 
seem to be naturally associated with those of the humorists now under 
consideration, and therefore he is mentioned here. He is best known 
by his Letters of Major Jack Downing ; Way Down East, or Portrai- 
tures of Yankee Life ; My Thirty Years out of the Senate, by Major 
Jack Downing. 

George W. Bagby. 

George William Bagby, M. D., 1828 , of Lynchburg, Va., has 

an extended reputation in the Southern States, and is not unknown 
further North, by his fusing Letters to Mozis Addums, and by other 
writings of a humorous character. 

Judge Longstreet. 

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, LL.D., 1790-1870, was among the 
most successful humorists of his day. His Georgia Scenes, for broad, 
irresistible fun, has rarely been equalled. 



VI. MISCELLANEOUS ^A;'RITERS. ' 

Bayard Taylor. 

Bayard Taylor, 1825 , has excelled, almost equally, in so many 

different lines of literary effort, that it is not easy to assign him to 
any one department of letters. He is eminent as a Traveller and a 
writer of Travels, as a Newspaper Correspondent, as a Novelist, as 
a Poet, as a Poetical Translator. There seems no resource, there- 
fore, but to place him at the head of Miscellaneous writers, although 
this association separates him somewhat from those with whom he is 
most associated in the public mind. 

His principal books of travel are Views a-Foot, El Dorado, A Voy- 
age on the Nile, The Lands of the Saracen, A Visit to India, China, 
and Japan. 

His principal novels are Hannah Thurston, John Godfrey's For- 
tunes, and Joseph and his Friends. 



i 



m 



286 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Of poetry he has published The Picture of St, John, a metrical 
romance ; Poems of the Orient ; Poems of Home Travel. 

The latest and greatest, however, of Mr. Taylor's poetic efforts is 
the translation of Goethe's Faust. This has met with the warmest 
praise from Americans, English, and Germans. Even those who are 
most critical in their judgments upon translations cannot withhold 
from Taylor's Faust their candid approval. It is indeed a most re- 
fined and scholarly work, and places Mr. Taylor on the bench of 
honor by the side of Longfellow and Bryant. 

Gen. D. H. Strother, — '' Porte Crayon." 

Gen. David Hunter Strother, 1816 , of Berkeley Springs, Va., 

the " Porte Crayon " of Harper's Magazine, is known to all classes 
of readers by his genial pen-and-pencil sketches of life and scenery 
in the witching mountain scenery of the Old Dominion. 

Epes Sargent. 

Epes Sargent, 1812 , is known as the author of an admirable 

series of Readers and Speakers, as a critical editor of some of the 
standard English classics, and as the author of numerous original 
works, both prose and verse, of a high character. 

Henry Giles. 

Eev. Henry Giles, 1809 , acquired great celebrity twenty years 

ago, or more, as a public lecturer, chiefly on literary and historical 
topics. These lectures, with other of his writings, have since been 
published. 

Professor La Borde. 

Maximilian La Borde, M. D., 1804 , Professor of Ehetoric and 

Literature in the University of South Carolina, has been for thirty 
years conspicuously associated with the fortunes of that important 
State institution. Dr. La Borde has published three books: Introduc- 
tion to Physiology ; Story of Lethea and Verona ; History of South 
Carolina College. The work last named is the chief literary work of 
his life, and is commended in the highest terms for the thoroughness 
of its information, and for its calm, philosophical, and conscientious 
spirit. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 287 

Henry Barnard. 

Henry Barnard, LL. J)., 1811 , has acquired a national reputa- 
tion by his labors in the cause of popular education, and by his nu- 
merous and important publications on that subject. The principal of 
these are the following : School Architecture ; Normal Schools in the 
United States and Europe ; National Education in Europe ; History 
of Education in Connecticut; Hints and Methods for the Use of 
Teachers. 

John Ogden. 

John Ogden, A. M., 1824 , of the Ohio Central Normal School, 

has done good service in the cause of education, both by his labors as 
a teacher, and by his writings, particularly by his work on The Sci- 
ence of Education and Art of Teaching. 

J. P. Wiekershanfi. 

James Pyle Wickersham, LL. D., 1825 , State Superintendent 

of Public Schools of Pennsylvania, has been one of the most success- 
ful of American educational workers. He has been a practical 
teacher ; he has had on a large scale the training of teachers ; he has 
for several years directed the educational system of one of the largest 
States in the Union ; he has written several volumes on the work of 
education, and in each department of effort he has been found equal 
to the occasion. 

Besides numerous printed Addresses, and contributions to educa- 
tional journals, Mr. Wickersham has published two books, which have 
had a large sale, and have taken their place among the standard works 
of the profession : School Economy, and Methods of Instruction. 

W. Swinton. 

William Swinton, 1834 , Professor of English Literature in the 

University of California, finst acquired general notoriety as a War 
Correspondent. Since the close of the war, he has returned to liter- 
ary pursuits, where he is winning fresh laurels. 

Mr. Swinton has published The Twelve Decisive Battles of the 
War, an octavo volume of 500 pages, and has begun a series of educa- 
tional text-books, among which two school Histories of the United 
States, together with a Word-Book of Spelling, a Manual of Word 
Analysis, and an English Grammar have already been published. 



Ill 



288 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Alden, 

Joseph Alden, D.D., LL.D., 1807 , of the New York State 

Normal School at Albany, has long been prominently before the pub- 
lic as a leading educator and writer on educational topics. Dr. Alden's 
services, both literary and administrative, entitle him to the high 
rank which he holds as the head of one of the oldest and strongest of 
our State institutions for the education and training of teachers. 

Dr. Alden, besides his large work as an educator, has been diligent 
in the use of his pen, writing almost constantly for the periodical press, 
and sending out at intervals instructive volumes for the benefit of his 
generation. His earlier works were mostly for the young. Among 
these may be mentioned, The Example of Washington ; The Patriot's 
Fireside ; Religion in Fashionable Life, etc. Among his later writ- 
ings are : Elements of Intellectual Philosophy ; The Science of Gov- 
ernment in Connection with American Institutions, a text-book for 
academies and colleges ; The Citizen's Manual, being an abridgment 
of the preceding and intended for common schools ; Christian Ethics, 
or the Science of Duty. 

VII. NOVELS AND TALES. 

Ha^vtl:lorne. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864, stands by general consent at the 
head of the novelists of the present period. His Scarlet Letter, House 
of the Seven Gables, and Marble Faun place him beside the great 
masters, not of the age only, but of all time. 

Hawthorne is thought by many to have been the greatest creative 
genius of America. Certainly no other writer has succeeded so com- 
pletely in spiritualizing American life, in pervading it with the inner 
vitality of passion and reflection. His characters are apparently real, 
and yet separated from the commonplace by an impassable gulf The 
reader feels himself transported into a new world, under the guidance 
of a sombre and powerful genius. His style, indeed, is morbid, at 
least in its general effects. It produces the impression of a life utterly 
vain and hopeless, with a dark background of avenging fate. Yet as 
a master of style, he is inimitable. No one ever wrote purer English 
or used words more delicately and powerfully. 

Theodore Winthrop. 
Theodore Winthrop, 1828-1861, a young man of brilliant promise, 
is known chiefly by his posthumous novel of Cecil Dreeme. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 289 

Henry D. Thoreau. 

Henry D. Thoreau, 1817-1862, was a thorough humorist, in the old 
English sense of a man who indulges in Iiumors. One of his " humors" 
was to make long rambles, usually alone, through out-of-the-way dis- 
tricts, and give minute descriptions of what he saAV, and his own 
thoughts upon it. His principal works, all produced in this way, are 
Walden, or Life in the Woods; Excursions in Field and Forest; The 
Maine Woods ; Cape Cod ; Walking ; Autumnal Tints ; Wild Flowers, 
etc. W^ith Thoreau's wonderfully acute power of observation, and his 
fine taste and skill in word-painting, he might have made a first-class 
naturalist. His works are to the last degree original and quaint. 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr., LL. D., 1815 , son of the poet and 

essayist mentioned in the preceding chapter, though not following lit- 
erature as a profession, has attained no little eminence in that line. 
His Two Years before the Mast, in particular, has had an uncommon 
popularity. 

Donald G. Mitchell, — ^^ Ik Marvel." 

Donald Grant Mitchell, 1822 , better known as "Ik Marvel," 

has charmed his countrymen by the exquisite sketches of life contained 
in the Reveries of a Bachelor and in Dream Life. 

Richard B. Kimball. 

Richard Burleigh Kimball, 1816 , has published a number of 

works, of which the best known is St. Ledger, or The Threads of Life. 

J. R. Gilmore, — '^Edmund Kirke." 

James R. Gilmore, 1823 , under the name of " Edmund Kirke," 

became widely known during the war by his novels descriptive of the 
conflict, especially by his book, ''Among the Pines," the sale of which 
was very large. 

W. Gilmore Simms. 

William Gilmore Simms, LL.D., 1806-1870, of Charleston, S. C, 

was one of the most prolific of American romancers. His novels are 

mostly founded on local traditions, giving them an historical character 

and value, and have been in good repute. Some of the best known of 

25 T 



m. 



I 



290 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

these are the following : The Partisan ; Katharine Walton ; The 
Scout ; The Black Eiders of the Congaree ; The Foragers ; the Wig- 
wam and the Cabin; The Damsel of Darien; The Yemassee; The 
Lily and the Totem; Guy Rivers; Border Beagles; The Golden 
Christmas, etc. 

John Esten Cooke. 

John Esten Cooke, 1830 , has done for the historical traditions 

of Virginia what Simms did for those of the Carolinas, and Cooper for 
those of the North and West. Some of Mr. Cooke's historical novels, 
such as The Virginia Comedians, and Henry St. John, are the best 
and truest pictures anywhere to be found of Virginia in the olden time. 
He has shown himself an able biographer also by his Lives of Stone- 
wall Jackson and Lee, and he contributed actively in other ways to 
the literature of the war. 

Philip Pendleton. Cooke. 

Philip Pendleton Cooke, 1816-1850, though known chiefly as a 
poet, yet wrote excellent prose. There are, moreover, other reasons, 
connected with his name and the family traditions, for not separating 
him from his younger brother, J. Esten Cooke. The volume by which 
Philip Pendleton Cooke is best known is The Froissart Ballads, con- 
taining among other pieces the exquisite poem of Florence Vane. 

R. M. Bird. 

Eobert Montgomery Bird, M. D., 1805-1854, is favorably known as 
a writer of romantic fiction, as well as joint proprietor and editor of 
the Philadelphia North American. His best known novels were The 
Hawks of Hawk Hollow, a tradition of Pennsylvania, and Nick of 
the Woods. 

Charles J. Peterson. 

Charles J. Peterson, 1818 , proprietor and editor of Peterson's 

Ladies' Magazine, has written several popular novels, besides some 
historical and biographical works of value. His best known works 
are The Military Heroes of the United States, a work for popular read- 
ing, illustrated, in two large volumes, octavo, and the novels, Kate 
Aylesford, and The Old Stone Mansion. 

Herman Melville. 

Herman Melville, 1819 , is the author of several works of fic- 
tion, describing wild adventures among the islands of the Pacific. The 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 291 

following are the principal : Typee, or Four Months in the Marque- 
sas ; Omoo ; Mardi, and a Voyage Thither ; Redburn, or the Confes- 
sions of a Gentleman's Son in the Merchant Service. 

T. S. Arthur. 

Timothy Shay Arthur, 1809 , is one of the most prolific writers 

that our current literature presents. Nearly all his writings are 
novels and tales. 

Most of his works have appeared originally in serial form, either in 
Arthur's Magazine, of wliich he is the editor and proprietor, or ia 
some similar publication. They consist almost exclusively of tales, 
are of a popular character, representing American domestic life, and 
many of them are intended particularly for the young. Some of his 
best-written tales, as Ten Nights in a Bar-Eoom, and Six Nights with 
the Washingtonians, are written in advocacy of the cause of total ab- 
stinence. 

W. T. Adams, — '' Oliver Optic." 

"William T. Adams, 1822 , is the most prolific, and the best 

writer that we have, of story-books for boys. His name, "Oliver 
Optic," is a key to one main element of his popularity. He is one 
who has used his eyes. He writes of what he has seen. Another source 
of his popularity is his warm sympathy, with the young. One cannot 
read a page of his writings without seeing that there is no^ make- 
believe in this matter. The author himself really enjoys the boyish 
scenes which he creates. His long experience as a teacher has proba- 
bly helped him on this point. At all events, he seems to have an 
instinctive knowledge of what will interest young people, and espe- 
cially boys. As a caterer to boyish tastes, and at the same time an 
educator of those tastes to high standards of judging and acting, Mr. 
Adams is without an equal at the present time. 

The following is a list of his publications : Boat Club Series, 6 vols ; 
Woodville Series, 6 vols. ; Army and Navy Series, 6 vols. ; Riverdale 
Stories, 6 vols. ; Starry Flag Series, 6 vols. ; Lake Shore Series, 6 vols. ; 
Upward and Onward, 6 vols. ; Young America Abroad, first Series, 6 
vols., second Series, 2 vols.; Hatchie, 1 vol.; In-Doors and Out, 1 
vol. ; The Way of the World, 1 vol. ; Our Standard Bearer, 1 vol. ; A 
Spelling-Book for Advanced Cla.sses, 1 vol. — total, 55 volumes. 

Jacob Abbott. 

Rev. Jacob Abbott, 1803 , is a voluminous and popular writer. 

Few writers have excelled him as a caterer for the wants of the young 



292 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

mind, and liis works in this line entitle him to a high rank. They 
are exceedingly numerous. The following are the principal: The 
Kollo Books, 28 vols. ; The Franconia Stories, 10 vols. ; Marco Paul's 
Adventures, 6 vols.; Harper's Story Books, 36 vols.; Little Learner 
Series, 5 vols. ; Juno and Georgie Series, 4 vols. ; and a large number 
of biographies of distinguished sovereigns. His principal works for 
adult readers are : The Young Christian, The Corner Stone, The Way 
to do Good, and The Teacher. Nearly all these works have been re- 
printed abroad, and translated into various foreign languages, and 
their influence has been very great. 

John S. C. Abbott. 

Kev. John S. C. Abbott, 1805 , brother of Jacob, is likewise a 

prolific writer. His Kings and Queens fill six volumes. He has 
written several works on Napoleon and the French Kevolution, in all 
of which he is the apologist and advocate of the Bonapartes to a de- 
gree which has subjected him to severe criticism. The works of his 
which have received the commendation of all parties are The Mother 
at Home, and The Child at Home. 

Harriet Beeeher Stowe. 

Mrs. Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, 1812 , is one of the 

ablest and most brilliant of the Beecher family, and probably the 
ablest and most successful living American novelist, since the death 
of Hawthorne. Her best known and most characteristic novels are 
Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Minister's Wooing, Old Town Folks, and 
Agnes of Sorrento. Her stories for children, like those in Queer 
Little People, are in some respects better even than her novels. The 
House and Home Papers, and The Chimney Corner, show her to be 
possessed of remarkable power as an essayist. 

The Warners. 

The sisters SusAisr and Anna Warner gained a wide celebrity by the 
publication of a series of semi-religious novels, which had an extraor- 
dinary sale. Those best known are The Wide W^ide World, and 
Queechy, by Susan ; Dollars and Cents, and My Brother's Keeper, by 
Anna ; and Say and Seal, the joint production of the two. They have 
also written, either jointly or separately, a number of very attractive 
books for the young. Susan wrote under the name of " Elizabeth 
Wetherell," and Anna under the name of " Amy Lothrop." 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 293 

Mrs. Anna Cora Mo-watt Ritchie. 

Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt Eitchie, 1820-1870, achieved her chief dis- 
tinction as an actress. She won laurels also as a writer. She was 
the author of various novels, plays, poems, and sketches, but is best 
known in letters by the Autobiography of an Actress. 

Mrs. Sara J. Lippineott, — ^'^ Grace Greenwood." 

Mrs. Sara Jane (Clarke) Lippincott, 1823 , gained much eclat, 

under the name of " Grace Greenwood," as a writer of tales and 
sketches for the magazines. She has published several volumes. Her 
latest efforts have been directed mainly to writing for the young, and 
she edits a juvenile magazine called The Little Pilgrim. 

Harriet Prescott Spofford. 

Mrs. Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford, 1835 , is known 

chiefly by a work of fiction, called The Amber Gods. 

Miss Alcott. 

Miss Louisa May Alcott, 1832 , rose suddenly to fame, in 1867, 

by the publication of a novel called Little Women: This was followed 
in rapid succession by The Old Fashioned Girl, Little Men, and 
other stories conceived in the same vein, and all equally popular. 

Anna Dickinson. 

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, 1842 , is chiefly known as a lec- 
turer. She has published one book, What Answer, which was well 
received. 

Mrs. E. Oakes Smith. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, 1806 , is the author of numerous 

tales and novels which have given her a deserved celebrity. She has 
been conspicuous as a writer for nearly thirty years. During the lat- 
ter part of this period she was also engaged to some extent as a public 
lecturer. 

The following are some of her best known works : Kiches without 
Wings; The Sinless Child and Other Poems; The Lost Angel; 
Woman and her Needs. 
25* 



''I 

4 



kittil' 



294 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

Caroline Chesebro. 

Caroline Chesebro, , is the author of several well-written 

works of fiction, of which the latest and most powerful is The Foe in 
the Household. 

Mrs. Mary J. Holmes. 

Mrs. Mary J. Holmes, , is the author of a large number 

of tales and novels, which have been very popular. The following are 
the titles of some of her publications : Lena Rivers ; Darkness and 
Daylight; Tempest and Sunshine; Marian Grey; Meadow Brook; 
English Orphans. 

Mrs. Terhune, — ^^ Marion Harland." 

Mary Virginia Terhune, , in 1854 acquired a high repu- 
tation by her novel, Alone, written under the assumed name of " Mar- 
ion Harland." She has written many other novels since that time, 
and with a uniformity of excellence that is remarkable. The follow- 
ing are the titles of some of them : Hidden Path ; Husbands and 
Homes ; Euby's Husband ; Phemie's Temptation. 

Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson. 

Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson, — , of Mobile, has published 

several novels, characterized by great power of originality. These 
are Beulah, Macaria, and St. Elmo. There is much in the vigorous 
conception of these works to remind the reader of Jane Eyre and Vil- 
lette ; and the writer has been called by her admirers the American 
Charlotte Bronte. 

Mrs. Warfield and Mrs. Lee. 

Mrs. Catharine Anne Warfield, 1817 , and Mrs. Eleanor Percy 

Lee, 1820-1850, gained some reputation thirty years ago by a volume 
of Poems by Two Sisters. The surviving sister has within a few years 
gained a high name as a writer of fiction, especially by her novel. The 
Household of Bouverie. 

Mrs. A. D. T.Whitney. 

Mrs. Adeline D. T. Whitney, 1824 , has made a most favor- 
able impression as a writer of tales. Faith Gartney's Girlhood espe- 
cially has been a general favorite. Among her other works may 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 295 

be named: Mother Goose for Grown Folks; A Summer in Leslie 
Goldtliwaite's Life ; Patience Strong's Oatings ; We Girls. 

Mrs. Baker, — '^'^ Madeline Leslie." 

Mrs. Harriette Newell Woods Baker, 1815 , known in letters 

almost exclusively by the assumed name of " Mrs. Madeline Leslie," 
is unequalled as a writer of Sunday-School story-books. Her pro- 
ductiveness has been prodigious. Her books, too, have had a uni- 
formity of excellence and an unflagging popularity as remarkable as 
their number. She has published, up to this time, no less than one 
hundred and sixty distinct volumes, and the annual sales vary from 
two hundred and fifty thousand to half a million. 

Mrs. Sadlier. 

Mrs. James Sadlier, 1820 , of New York, has written a large 

number of attractive books, suited to the use of Catholic families, and 
has done in various ways effective service to the church of her affec- 
tions. She is also a frequent contributor to the Catholic journals, and 
one of the editors of the New York Tablet, 



VIII. HISTORIANS. 

Preseott. 

William Hickling Preseott, LL. D., 1796-1850, is universally accept- 
ed as a classical historian of the highest order. His chief works, the 
History of Ferdinand and Isabella, the History of Philip IL, the Con- 
quest of Mexico, and the Conquest of Peru, have obtained universal 
acceptance as models of historical composition. 

As an historian, Preseott stands in the foremost rank of narrators. 
He is surpassed by others in vigor of thought, and in philosophic acu- 
men. But no one has exceeded him in faithfulness and patience of 
investigation, in clearness and picturesqueness of description, and 
especially in charity towards the blunders and bigotry of bygone 
generations. 

Bancroft. 

George Bancroft, LL. D., 1800 , has clearly the honor of being 

thus far the ablest historian of the affairs of his own country. His 
History of the United States has not escaped criticism. Yet no one 
has hesitated to accord to it a place among the great historical works 



296 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of the age. In comprehensiveness of plan, in fuhiess of detail, in ac- 
curacy of research, and elaborateness of finish, and even in the minor 
graces of style and diction, Bancroft's work may be safely quoted as 
among the standard histories of the world. 

Mr, Bancroft's great work. The History of the United States from 
the Discovery of the American Continent, has now proceeded to the 
ninth volume. The first three volumes are occupied with the Settle- 
ment of the Colonies, the next three with the Estrangement from the 
Mother Country, and the next three with the War for Independence. 
The w^ork as a whole is undoubtedly the ablest, as it is the most com- 
prehensive work on the subject, and it is accepted for the most part as 
the standard authority. It is written with great, perhaps excessive 
care as to the style, the author not liaving had the skill always to con- 
ceal his art. His delineations of character, his descriptions of scenery, 
and his artistic grouping of details are often in the highest style of 
historical eloquence. But his narrative seldom flows with the ex- 
quisite simplicity and clearness which are the charm of Prescott's 
pages. 

Tieknor. 

George Tieknor, LL. D., 1791-1871, acquired a permanent and hon- 
orable place in literature by his History of Spanish Literature, and 
his Life of Prescott. 

Motley. 

John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D, 1814 , has followed in 

one respect the example of Prescott, and has made a select and im- 
portant portion of European history his own. His Else of the Dutch 
Eepublic, and his History of the United Netherlands, have unques- 
tionably filled a great hiatus in the history of the Old World. 

Kirk. 

John Foster Eirk, 1824 , by his History of Charles the Bold, 

Duke of Burgundy, has, in like manner with Prescott and Motley, 
taken an important topic in European history, and so treated it as to 
make the subject henceforth his own. 

Edward A. Pollard. 

Edward A. Pollard, 1838-1872, has been the ablest, the most in- 
dustrious, and the most conspicuous historian of the Confederacy. 
His chief work, Tlie Lost Cause, a large octavo of 750 pages, is an im- 
portant part of the literature of the times. 



ttij^ti 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 297 

John Gilmary Shea. 

John Gilmary Shea, LL. D., 1824 , has been a diligent student 

of history, and particularly of that relating to Catholic institutions, 
bibliography, and literature in the United States, and has made valu- 
able contributions to historical literature, both as an original author, 
and as a laborious and critical editor. 

The following are some of his principal publications : Discovery 
and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley ; History of the Catholic 
Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States ; Early Voy- 
age Up and Down the Mississippi ; Perils of the Ocean and Wilder- 
ness ; Bibliography of American Catholic Bibles and Testaments ; The 
Catholic Church in the United States. 

Some of his labors as translator and editor have been as follows : 
Charlevoix's New France, translated and edited, 6 vols. ; Memoirs and 
Eelations concerning the French Colonies in North America, a series 
of manuscrix^ts collected and edited by him, in 20 vols. ; The Library 
of American Linguistics, a series of Grammars and Dictionaries of the 
Indian Languages, 13 vols. 

Joseph Thomas. 

Joseph Thomas, LL. D., , of Philadelphia, has made the 

reading public of every name his debtors by his Gazetteer, and his 
Biographical Dictionary. Better works of the kind have never been 
published in English. The latter especially is a marvel of accuracy, 
and of judicious condensation. Most large works of this kind being 
produced by many hands, want uniformity of treatment, and are very 
unequal, — good on some points, poor on others. Dr. Thomas's book 
seems to be entirely his own, and is remarkably homogeneous. The 
same careful, conscientious hand is traceable in every article, big or 
little. It is, to a most unusual degree, uniform throughout, and mii- 
formly good. 

Mrs. E. F. Ellet. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Fries Ellet, 1818 , has contributed largely, in 

various ways, to literature, but has achieved her most lasting success 
in the line of biographical and historical composition. From the long 
list of her works the following may be named : Evenings at Woodlawn ; 
Queens of American Society ; The Domestic History of the American 
Eevolution ; The Women of the American Revolution. The last- 
named work is the one by which she has won her highest laurels. 
Much of the material was collected from private and original sources, 



298 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

making the work a positive addition to the national history, and the 
narrative and coloring are given with rare artistic skill. The work 
has passed through many editions, and deserves to become a part 
of the permanent literary wealth of the nation. 

Lossing. 

Benson John Lossing, 1813 , by his pictorial books of various 

kinds, has not only given a special interest to many places memorable 
for their historical associations, but he has preserved from destruction 
many important facts and traditions connected with the national his- 
tory. His principal works are : Pictorial Field Book of the Kevolu- 
tion ; Pictorial History of the Civil War of the United States ; History 
ofthe Warof 1812. 

IX. WRITERS ON POLITICS AND POLITICAL 
ECONOMY. 

Henry C. Carey. 

Henry Charles Carey, 1793 , is the ablest, as well as the most 

voluminous, writer that we have on the subject of political economy. 
He is an earnest advocate of a protective tariff, and has devoted his 
energies to this cause with unflagging zeal for nearly forty years. 

His principal works are the following : The Principles of Political 
Economy ; Essay on the Eate of Wages ; The Credit System in France, 
Great Britain, and the United States ; The Past, the Present, and the 
Future ; The Harmony of Interests, Agricultural, Manufacturing, and 
Commercial ; The Principles of Social Science. 

Charles Sumner. 

Charles Sumner, LL. D,, 1811 , for many years a leading sena- 
tor of the United States, is distinguished as a political orator. His 
Orations, chiefly on political topics, fill eight large volumes. 

Alexander H. Stephens. 

Alexander Hamilton Stephens, 1812 , of Georgia, was Vice- 
President of the late Confederacy, and one of its ablest and most per- 
sistent advocates. As a political' writer, Mr. Stephens has always 
commanded respect, even from those most opposed to his views. 

Mr. Stephens has occupied his leisure, since the downfall of the 
Confederacy, in writing its story : A History of the War between the 
States, Tracing its Origin, Causes, and Eesults. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 299 



Hinton Ro^wan Helper. 

Hinton Kowan Helper, 1829 — — , of North Carolina, acquired a 
painful notoriety, before and during the war, by the publication of a 
book, called The Impending Crisis of the South, of which more than 
140,000 copies were sold. He has since written another book, No- 
joque, a Question for a Continent, the object of which is to correct the 
impression derived from the Impending Crisis, that he is the friend 
of the negro. He wishes the world to know that, in writing against 
slavery and slaveholders, he has not written in the interest of the 
negro race. On the contrary, he wishes them exterminated. He has 
published another work in the same vein. The Negroes in Negroland, 
the Negroes in America, and Negroes Generally. He writes with a 
reckless vigor that insures him readers, though it gives one little con- 
fidence in his opinions. 



X. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS. 

Agassiz. 

Louis John Rudolph Agassiz, 1807 , though pre-eminent as a 

scientist, has not thought it beneath his aim to use the arts of rhetoric 
in commending his favorite studies to the attention of unlearned read- 
ers. Few even of our professed literary men excel him in the matter 
of writing good English. 

His work on Methods of Study in Natural History, is, in mere at- 
tractions of style and language, as fascinating as a work of romance. 
The same may be said of his volume on The Structure of Animal 
Life, being a course of lectures delivered before the Brooklyn Institute 
to illustrate the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested 
in his works. 

Guyot. 

Arnold Henry Guyot, LL. D., 1807 , who by his investigations 

in Physical Geography has placed himself at the head of that branch 
of science in the United States, has given some of the results of his 
inquiries in- aii interesting and popular volume, called Earth and Man, 
which has passed through ^many editions. Prof. Guyot is also the 
author of a large number of elaborate Wall Maps of Physical Geog- 
raphy, and of a series of admirable Common School Geographies. 



300 AMERICAi^ LITERATURE. 

Com. Maury. 

Matthew Fontaine Manry, LL. D., 1806 , an eminent physicist, 

is known throughout the civilized world by his Wind and Current 
Charts, and his Physical Geography of the Sea. 

J. Dorman Steele. 

Prof. J. Dorman Steele, Ph. D., 1836 , is one of the progressive 

men among our younger class of teachers. He has acquired a high 
reputation as a teacher, and his series of Short Courses in several 
of the sciences are a marked feature among our latest school-book 
publications. 

Prof. Steele's "Short Courses" grew out of his own wants in the 
class-room. The following is the list : Fourteen Weeks in Natural 
Philosophy ; the same in Chemistry ; in Astronomy ; in Geology ; in 
Physiology. 

Edvv^ard Brooks. 

Edward Brooks, A.M., 1831 , Principal of the State Normal 

School at Millersville, Pa,, has done an important service to the cause 
of popular education by his valuable contributions to educational 
literature in the extended series of mathematical text-books which he 
has put forth. 

The works published by him are the following : An arithmetical 
series, consisting of six books, — a Primary, an Elementary (written), 
a Mental, and a Written Arithmetic, together with two Keys, which, 
besides the solutions to the problems, contain many valuable exercises 
and suggestions ; Geometry, and Trigonometry, two works bound to- 
gether or separately, as teachers may prefer ; Elementary Algebra, 
the latest and probably the best of the author's works. 

Prof. Whitney. 

William Dwight Whitney, Ph.D., LL.D., 1827 — -, Professor of 
Sanscrit and Modern Languages in Yale College, stands at the head 
of American scholarship in the department of letters to which he has 
devoted himself. Besides very learned disquisitions which hardly 
come within the scope of ordinary readers, his Lectures on Language 
are a contribution at once to original science and to popular literature, 
and are the best presentation of the subject yet made by any Ameri- 
can writer. 

Professor Bledsoe. 

Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL. D., , for some time Professor 

of Mathematics in the University of Virginia, has written with great 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 301 

ability on the Philosophy of Mathematics, and on some of the most 
abstruse points of metaphysical inquiry. 

Professors Chase and Stuart. 

Thomas Chase, A. M,, Professor of Philology in Haverford College, 
near Philadelx^hia, and George Stuart, A.M., Professor of Latin in 
the Philadelphia High School, have made a valuable addition to our 
educational literature in the preparation of an extended series of clas- 
sical text-books. This series includes all the Latin authors ordinarily 
used in College courses. 

Prof. N. C. Brooks. 

Kathaniel Covington Brooks, LL. D., 1809 , the veteran educa- 
tor, besides the large work which he has done as a teacher, has made 
numerous and valuable contributions to educational literature. 

Those by which he is best known are his classical series, growing 
out of his wants and profession as a teacher. They are the following : 
JEneid of Yirgil; Ovid's Metamorphoses; Caesar's Commentaries; 
Historia Sacra ; Viri Illustres Americani ; First Latin Lessons ; First 
Greek Lessons. 

Professor MeGuffey. 

William H. MeGuffey, D. D., LL. D., 1800 , Professor of Moral 

Philosophy and Political Economy in the University of Virginia, is 
widely known by his Eclectic Series of School Readers. 

Professors Newell and Creery. 

Professors ISTeweel and Creery, of Baltimore, have prepared in 
conjunction a series of books known as The Maryland Series, which 
has been received with much favor. 

The publications of these gentlemen are the following : Primary 
School Spelling-Book ; Grammar School Spelling-Book ; First, Second, 
Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Eeaders ; Catechism of United States 
History. 

XI. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 

Dr. Hodge. 

Charles Hodge, D. D., LL. D., 1797 , Senior Professor in the 

Theological Seminary at Princeton, has been for many years the 
acknowledged leader in theology of the Presbyterian Church in the 
26 



302 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

United States. His great work on Systematic Theology is the most 
elaborate and exhaustive treatise on that subject which American lit- 
erature has yet produced. 

Other works of Dr. Hodge are The Way of Life, and Commentaries 
on the Epistles to the Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and 
Ephesians. All these are held in the highest estimation, and are 
standard works on the subjects treated. 

Dr. MeCosh. 

James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., 1811 -, President of the College 

of New Jersey, has g»eatly distinguished himself as a writer on Meta- 
physics. 

His work on The Method of the Divine Government, published in 
1850, made a profound impression. It showed the author to be a man 
capable of dealing with the very highest questions of mental and 
spiritual science, on equal terms with the great thinkers of the race, 
ancient or modern, — Aristotle, Plato, Edwards, Kant, and Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton. 

Some of his other works are the following : The Intuitions of the 
Mind Inductively Investigated ; The Supernatural in Relation to the 
Natural ; Logic ; Christianity and Positivism. 

Noah Porter. 

Noah Porter, D. D., LL. D., 1811 , President of Yale College, 

is highly distinguished as a writer on metaphysics and education. His 
principal works are The Human Intellect, Elements of Intellectual 
Philosophy, Books and Reading, Educational Systems of the Puritans 
and Jesuits Compared, and The American Colleges and the American 
People. All his writings indicate a mind of superior grasp. His work 
on the Human Intellect is pronounced by the Princeton Review to be 
" the most complete and exhaustive exhibition of the cognitive facul- 
ties of the human soul to be found in our language, perhaps in any 
language." 

Dr. Boardman. 

Henry Augustus Boardman, D. D., 1808 , long the most con- 
spicuous ornament of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, has 
made many valuable contributions to religious literature, among which 
may be named especially two admirable volumes. The Bible in the 
Family, and The Bible in the Counting-House. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 303 

Dr. Jacobus. 

Melancthon Williams Jacobus, D.D., LL. D., 1816 , Professor 

of Oriental and Biblical Literature in the Presbyterian Theological 
Seminary at Alleghany, Pa., is the author of a valuable series of 
Commentaries. 

These have extended to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and 
Genesis. They belong to the same class as Barnes's Notes, being in- 
tended mainly for the use of Sunday-School teachers, though having 
some marked peculiarities of their own. They have been very popu- 
lar, and constitute the author's chief claim to literary distinction. 

Dr. Shedd. 

William Greenough Thayer Shedd, D. D., 1820 , Professor of 

Biblical Literature in Union Theological Seminary, New York, has 
published a History of Christian Doctrine, a Treatise on Homiletics, 
and other valuable works. 

Theodore L. Cuyler. 

Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, D. D., 1822 , pastor of the Lafayette 

Avenue church in Brooklyn, has acquired as much distinction by 
his " Stray Arrows " in the papers, as by his pulpit eloquence. 

Dr. Cuyler writes regularly for four papers, the Independent, Evan- 
gelist, National Temperance Advocate, and Zion's Herald. He Avrites 
frequently also for the Presbyterian and the Intelligencer. He has 
published more than 1300 articles. He has written also thirty-five 
tracts, one of which. Somebody's Son, has had an immense circulation. 
His four books are, Stray Arrows, Cedar Christian, Heart Life, and 
Empty Crib. 

Tayler Levels. 

Tayler Lewis, D. D., LL. D., 1802 , Professor of Greek in 

Union College, Schenectady, is by general consent the foremost man 
in his department in the United States. In the extent and thorough- 
ness of his attainments in Greek, he ranks with the first scholars of 
the great European Universities. At the same time, while making 
these special acquisitions, he .has not lived the life of a recluse, but 
has managed to keep himself abreast with general scholarship, and 
has contributed largely to current literature. 

The following are his principal works : The Platonic Theology, or 
Plato contra Atheos ; The Six Days of Creation ; The World Problem, 



■i 



304 AMERICAN LITEEATURE. 

or the Bible and Science; The Divine-Human in the Scriptures; 
State Eights, a Photograph from the Kuins of Ancient Greece ; Capi- 
tal Punishment. 

Dr. Plumer. 

William Swan Plumer, D. D., LL. D., 1802 , Professor of Di- 
dactic and Polemic Theology in the Theological Seminary at Colum- 
bia, S. C, is one of the ablest theologians and preachers that the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States has produced. He is the 
author of seventeen volumes, varying in size from the small Sunday- 
School book to the massive octavo, and of more than sixty religious 
tracts. His writings are uniformly marked by clearness and vigor of 
thought, and are models of good English. 

The following are some of his principal works : The Promises of 
God ; The Bible True ; The Church and Her Enemies ; Vital Godli- 
ness ; Eock of Our Salvation ; Grace of Christ ; Jehovah-jireh ; Com- 
mentary on the Epistle to the Eomans, large 8vo ; Commentary on 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, large 8vo ; Studies in the Book of Psalms, 
royal octavo of 1211 pages. 



Dr. Smyth. 

Thomas Smyth, D. D., 1808 , a distinguished Presbyterian di- 
vine of Charleston, S. C, has made many and able contributions to the 
theological literature of his Church. Some of his publications are the 
following : Lectures on the Prelatical Doctrine of the Apostolic Suc- 
cession ; Ecclesiastical Catechism of the Presbyterian Church ; Pres- 
bytery and not Prelacy the Scriptural and Primitive Polity ; Ecclesi- 
astical Eepublicanism ; History of the Westminster Assembly ; Name, 
Nature, and Functions of Euling Elder ; Prelatical Eite of Confirma- 
tion Examined. 

Dr. Seott. 

William Anderson Scott, D.D., 1813 , pastor of the St. John's 

Presbyterian church, San Francisco, widely known as an eloquent 
preacher, has gained equal reputation as a writer, his contributions to 
religious literature being both numerous and valuable. Some of his 
publications are the following : The Christ of the Apostles' Creed ; 
The Voice of the Church against Arianism ; Strauss and Eenan ; The 
Centurions of the Gospel; The Wedge of Gold, or Achan in El Do- 
rado ; Trade and Letters, their Journeyings round the World. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 305 

Dr. Charles Porterfield Krauth. 

Charles Porterfield Krauth,D.D., 1823 : , Professor of Moral and 

Intellectual Philosophy in the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the 
most learned theologians in the Lutheran Church in the United States. 
His latest and largest work, The Conservative Reformation and its 
Theology, is a work of masterly ability and independent research. 

Dr. Sehaff. 

Philip Sehaff, D. D., 1819 , is one of the most industrious and 

prolific contributors to theological literature that the times have pro- 
duced. Of his many important works the greatest is his editing an 
English translation of Lange's great Commentary on the Holy Scrip- 
tures. This work, in its introduction to American readers, has been 
not merely translated, but has been enlarged and modified to such an 
extent as to be almost a new and original work ; and although exe- 
cuted in detail by numerous fellow-workmen, yet the whole of it has 
passed through the supervision of Dr. Sehaff as translator and editor 
in chief. The work when finished will be the most complete and 
thorough commentary in the English language. 

Henry Ward Beeeher. 

Eev. Henry Ward Beeeher, 1813 , pastor of the Plymouth 

church, Brooklyn, the most popular of American preachers, is also, 
though not equally, distinguished as a writer. His Star Papers, Life 
Thoughts, and Norwood are among the best-known American books. 

President Chadbourne. 

Paul A. Chadbourne, LL. D., 1823 , President of Williams Col- 
lege, is distinguished as a naturalist, an administrator of affairs, and 
an author. His publications are not numerous, but are of a high 
order of ability. They are the following : The Relations of Natural 
History to Intellect, Taste, Wealth, and Religion ; Natural Theology ; 
Instinct in Animals and Man. 

Prof. Peabody. 

Andrew Preston Peabody, D. D., LL. D., 1811 , Professor of 

Christian Morals in Harvard University, is a leading theologian among 
the Unitarians, and has contributed largely to the religious literature 
of the denomination to which he belongs. 
26* U 



■ 



306 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

One of Dr. Peabody's most popular works is a treatise on the Faults 
and Graces of Conversation. Some of his other works are : Christian- 
ity the Religion of Nature ; Sermons for Children ; Reminiscences of 
European Travel ; Lectures on Christian Doctrine. 

Prof. Haekett. 

Horatio Balch Haekett, D. D., LL. D., 1808 , Professor of 

Biblical Literature in the Newton Theological Institution, is one of 
the most eminent divines and scholars of the Baptist denomination. 
Among his contributions to theological literature the following may 
be named : A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles ; Illustrations 
of Scripture suggested by a Tour in the Holy Land ; Notes on the 
Greek Text of Philemon, with a revised Translation. 

President Samson. 

George Whitefield vSamson, D. D., President of Rutgers Female 
College, New York city, has a high reputation as an educator, and is 
the au'tiior of several valuable works. His largest work is one on 
Art-Criticismj filling 800 pages 8vo. 

Dr. Eddy. 

Daniel C. Eddy, D. D., , Pastor of the First Baptist 

church, Fall River, Mass., is the author of a large number of religious 
books which have been very popular. The following may be named : 
Young Man's Friend ; Europa, or Scenes in the Old World ,• The 
Burman Apostle, a brief life of Judson ; The Percy Family, 5 vols., 
for children ; Walter's Tour in the East, 6 vols., for children ; The 
Fleroines of the Missionary Enterprise ; The Young Woman's Friend, 
or Women of the Bible; Angel Whispers, a book of consolation for 
mourners. 

Dr. MeClintoek. 

John MeClintoek, D. D., LL.D., 1814-1870, late President of Drew 
Theological Seminary, was one of the leading writers in the Methodist 
Church in the United States. His great work, Theological and Bibli- 
cal Cyclopaedia, projected and, before his death, nearly completed, by 
him and his colleague, Dr. Strong, is a monument of scholarship and 
theological learning. 



FEOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 307 

Abel Stevens. 

Abel Stevens, D. D., LL. J)., 1815 , Editor of the Methodist, 

has made larger contributions than any living vrriter to the History 
of Methodism, and has written more probably than any one else of the 
larger books on the catalogue of the Book Concern. Of his own 
works the following may be named : Introduction of Methodism into 
the United States ; Progress of Methodism in Xew England ; History 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, 4 vols. ; His- 
tory of the Eeligious Movement in the Eighteenth Century called 
Methodism, 3 vols. 

Dr. Whedon. 

Daniel Denison Whedon, D. D., LL. D., 1808 , official editor 

of the Methodist Quarterly Review, is known most favorably among 
theologians by his work on The "Will. 

James Challen. 

Eev. James Challen, 1802 , was one of the earliest and most 

conspicuous converts to the doctrines of Alexander Campbell, and has 
contributed largely to the literature of his Church. Of Mr. Challen's 
works the following may be named : The Gospel and its Elements ; 
Christian Evidences ; Baptism in Spirit and in Fire ; Christian 
Morals ; The Cave of Macpelah and Other Poems. 

President Milligan. 

Eev. Eobert Milligan, 1814 , President of the College of the 

Bible in the Kentucky University, at Lexington, has shown extraor- 
dinary executive ability in organizing the University of which he is 
so conspicuous an ornament, and has made several valuable contribu- 
tions to the theological literature of his Church. Among these may 
be named The Scheme of Eedemption, Eeason and Eevelation, The 
Great Commission. 

Bishop Mellvaine. 

Et. Eev. Charles Petit Mellvaine, D. D., LL. D., 1798 , Bishop 

of Ohio, is known in literature chiefly by his popular work on the 
Evidences of Christianity. 

Bishop Odenheimer. 

Et. Eev. William Henry Odenheimer, D.D., LL. D., 1817 , 

Bishop of New Jersey, has made a special study of Canon Law, and 



308 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



M 



I 



is an authority in his Church in matters pertaining to church order. 
He is also remarkable for his earnestness and spirituality as a Chris- 
tian pastor. Among his publications the following may be named : The 
Origin and Compilation of the Prayer-Book ; The Devout Church- 
man's Companion ; The True Catholic no Romanist ; Thoughts on 
Immersion ; The Young Churchman Catechized ; Essay on Canon 
Law ; The Sacred Scriptures, the Inspired Record of the Glory of the 
Holy Trinity. 

Dr. Stone. 

John Seely Stone, D. D., 1795 , Senior Professor of the Epis- 
copal Theological School at Cambridge, Mass., is regarded as the 
most accomplished expounder of Christian doctrine in the American 
Episcopal Church. His publications have not been numerous, but 
have uniformly been of a high order of merit, and his Sermons, both 
in matter and style, are worthy of being accounted classical. Of his 
published works the following may be named : A Life of Bishop Gris- 
wold; A Life of Dr. Milnor; The Living Temple; The Christian 
Sacraments; The Divine Rest (a work on the Sabbath). 



Dr. Tyng. 

Stephen Higginson Tyng, D. D., 1800 , rector of St. George's, 

N. Y., has been for many years an acknowledged leader in what is 
known as the Low-Church party in the Episcopal Church. Of his 
many publications the following are worthy of special note : Forty 
Years' Experience in Sunday-Schools ; Memoir of Dr. Bedell ; Me- 
moir of Rev. E. P. Messenger ; Lectures on the Law and the Gospel ; 
The Rich Kinsman, or The History of Ruth ; The Captive Orphan, 
or Esther Queen of Persia ; The Spencers, a work of religious fiction. 

Archbishop Kenriek. 

The Most Rev. Francis Patrick Kenriek, D. D., 1797-1863, 
Archbishop of Baltimore, was esteemed among all denominations, 
Protestant and Catholic, as an amiable and scholarly man, of great 
and varied learning, particularly in the department of dogmatic the- 
ology. Though earnestly devoted to the work and the interests of his 
own Church, he was not wanting in charity and kindness to men of 
other creeds, as the writer of the present volume takes pleasure in 
testifying from his own experience. 

Dr. Kenrick's two greatest works are in Latin : Theologia Dog- 
matica, in 4 vols., and Theologia Moralis, in 3 vols., 8vo. Of his 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 309 

works in English, the most extended and interesting is a new version 
of the entire Bible, with a commentary. 

Archbishop Spalding. 

The Most Eev. Martin John Spalding, D. D., 1810-1872, late Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, made several important contributions to theolog- 
ical literature, mostly of a controversial kind. The following are some 
of them : Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions of Kentucky ; The 
Life and Labors of Bishop Flaget ; A Review of D' Aubigne's History 
of the Reformation, embracing the History of the Protestant Reforma- 
tion in all Countries ; Miscellanea, a collection of Reviews, Essays, and 
Lectures on about fifty difierent subjects, 2 vols., 8vo; Lectures on the 
Evidences of Catholicity. 

Archbishop Bayley. 

The Most Eev. James Roosevelt Bayley, D. D.^ 1814 , Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, has long been known as one of the most scholarly 
prelates in the Catholic Episcopate in the United States. His chief 
publication is A Brief Sketch of the Early History of the Catholic 
Church on the -Island of New York. 

Archbishop Hughes. 

The Most Eev. John Hughes, D. D., Archbishop of New York, 1797 
-1864, was one of the most conspicuous and energetic of the Catholic 
prelates in the United States. His writings were chiefly controversial, 
the most memorable heing the Debates between himself and Dr. John 
Breckinridge, carried on in one of the Philadelphia newspapers, and 
afterwards republished in book-form. 

Bishop England. 

Rt. Rev. Jolin England, D. D., 1786-1842, long Bishop of Charles- 
ton, S. C, was held in high esteem among his fellow-citizens of all 
denominations. His writings have been published in eight large vol- 
umes, and form a valuable part of the Catholic theological literature 
of the United States. 

Brownson. 

Orestes Augustus Brownson, LL. D., 1803 , editor of Brownson's 

Review, is the ablest and the best known lay writer among American 
Catholics. His writings have appeared chiefly in Brow"son's Quar- 



310 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



terly, conducted by himself. Charles El wood, or the Infidel Converted, 
is a novel describing his own religious experience. The Covenant, or 
Leaves from my Experience, is another work of the same character. 
Since 1844, Dr. Brownson has supported his Eeview almost single- 
handed, devoting himself chiefly to the advocacy and defence of the 
doctrines of the Catholic Church, but discussing also questions of 
politics and literature. 





Index. 



Abbott, Jacob, 291 ; John S. C, 292. 

Abhotsfovd, residence of Walter Scott, 
149. 

Abelard and JEloise, by Pope, 86. 

AJbercvombie, John, 155. 

Adam Bede, by George Eliot, 196. 

Adams, John, 22S ; John Quincy, 249. 

Adams, W. T., " Oliver Optic," 291. 

Addison, Joseph, 90. 

Adonais, by Shelley, 141. 

Agassiz, Louis J. R., 299. 

Age, The, of Philadelphia, 281. 

Age of Meason, by Thomas Paine, 128. 

Aids to JReflection, by Coleridge, 145. 

Aikin, John, 159. 

Alzenside, Mark, 114. 

Alcott, Louisa May, 293. 

Alden, Joseph, 288. 

Alex.ander, Archibald, 253 ; James and 
Addison, 254. 

A Ifot'd, Henry, 212. 

Ali.son, Sir Archibald, 178; Archibald, 
180. 

Allen, William, 245. 

Allihone, S. Austin, 274. 

Alliterative Verse, in Piers Plowman, 
26. 

Alton Iiocke, by Kingsley, 194. 

Amelia, by Fielding, 110. 

American T,iterature, a part of Eng- 
lish Literature, 18 ; Encyclopedia of, 
by Duyckinck, 274. 

Anies, Fisher, 231. 

Among my Boohs, by Lowell. 272. 

'•Ami/ J.ofliroi),'* .\niia Warner, 292. 



Analogy of Jteligion, by Butler, 99. 
Anatomy of Melancholy , by Robert 

Burton, 51. 
Ancient Mariner, by Coleridge, 144. 
Ancren Jtitvle, The, 21. 
Angler, Complete, by Izaak Walton, 71. 
Anglo-Saxon, parent of the English, 

17. 
Animated Nature, by Goldsmith, 113. 
AntJion, Charles, 253. 
Anti- Jacobin , by Canning, 153. 
Apology for the Bible, Watson's, 137. 
Arbuthnot, John, 93. 
Arcades, by Milton, 64. 
Arcadia, The, by Sir Philip Sidney, 40. 
Arctic Explorations, by Dr. Kane, 

252. 
Arden, Mary, mother of Shakespeare, 46. 
Areopagitica, by Milton, 65. 
Argyle, Duke of, 202. 
Arnold, Thomas, 179 ; Matthew, 180. 
" Artemus Ward," C. F. Browne, 283. 
Arthur, T. S., 291. 
Ascham, Roger, 50. 
Associated Press, New York, 283. 
Atterbnry, Bishop, 94. 
Audubon, John James, 235. 
Austen, Lady, friend of Cowper, 121 ;• 

Jane, 151 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Tabl^e, 

by Holmes. 275. 
Aytoun, William E., 185. 

Bache, Alexander Dallas, 25J. 
Bacon, Fiaiicls-. Lord Bacon. 43. 
811 



312 



INDEX, 



li 



Haghy, George W., 285. 

Jiaily, Nathan, lexicographer, 98 ; Philip 

James, 185. 
HniUie, Joanna, 145. 
Balier, Mrs. Harriette N. W., "Made- 
line Leslie," 295. 
JBanci'oft, George, 295. 
Jiarhauld, Anna Letitia, 158. 
JBarclay, Robert, 83. 
Barham, Richard H., author of In- 

goldsby Legends, 165. 
Bnrlotc, Joel, 231. 
Barnard, Henry, 287. 
Barnes, Albert, 256. 
Barroiv, Isaac, 74. 

''Barry Corntvall," B. W. Procter, 185. 
Barton, Bernard, 106. 
Battle of the Kegs, by Hopkinson, 230. 
Baxter, Richard, 74. 
Bayley, Archbishop, 309; Thomas 

Haynes, 166. 
Bay Psalm Boole, 221. 
Beattie, James, 122. 
Beaumont and Fletcher, dramatists, 

48. 
BeeeJier, Lyman, 257 ; Henry "Ward, 305. 
BeecTienbrook, by Mrs. Prestun, 270. 
Beggar's Ojiera, by Gay, 87. 
Bell, Gurrer, Acton, and Ellis, 169. 
Bells, by Poe, 237. 
Ben tlonson, 47. 
Bennett, James Gordon, 278. 
Bentharn, Jeremy, 155. 
Bentley, Richard, 96. 
Benton, Thomas IT.. 249. 
Berkeley, George, Bishop of Cloyne, 95. 
Bethnne, George W., 258. 
Benlah, by Mrs. A. E. Wilson, 294. 
Bevei'idge, William, 82. 
Bible, English, Wyckliffe's "Version, 27, 

54; Tyndale's, 54; Coverdale's, 55; 

Matthew's, 55 ; Great Bible, or Cran- 

mers, 55 ; Geneva, 56; Bishops', 56; 

Rlieims-Donay, 57 ; King James's, 57. 
Bible in Family, by Dr. Boardman, 

.302. 
BicUersteth, Rev. Edward H., 186. 
Biddle, Charles J., 281. 
Bigelow Papers, by Lowell, 272. 
Biographia Biteraria, Coleridge's, 

145. 
Biographical Dictionary, by 

Thomas, 297. 
Bird, R. M , 290. 

Birds of America, by Audubon, 235. 
Bitter-Sweet, by J. G. Holland, 269. 



Black Prince, The, 24. 
Blackivood, Magazine, founded, 171. 
Blair, Robert, 88 ; Hugh, 131 ; James, 

224. 
Blank Verse, first introduced by Sur- 
rey, 35. 
Bledsoe, Albert Taylor, 300. 
Blessington, Lady, 151. 
Blind Harry, the Scotch minstrel, 30. 
Bloomfield, Robert, 147. 
Boardman, H. A., 302. 
Body of Bivinity, by Stackhouse, 99; 

by Ridgley, 100. 
Boker, George H., 268. 
Bolingbroke, Viscount, 94. 
Bonar, Horatius, 186. 
Borrow, George, 168. 
Boston, Thomas, 100. 
Bos well's Life of Johnson, 103. 
Botanic Garden, by Erasmus Dar- 

wine, 122. 
Boyle, Hon Robert, 80 ; Charles, 96. 
Bracebridge Mall, by Irving, 244. 
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 230. 
Bradstreet, Anne, 233. 
Breckinridge, Robert J., 256. 
Breitmann, Hans, 284. 
Brewster, Sir David, 203. 
Bride of Abydos, by Byron, 140. 
Bridge of Sighs, by Hood, 165. 
Bridgewater Treatises, 175. 
British Poets, by Dr. Aikin, 159. 
British S2>y, by Wirt, 234. 
Bronte, Charlotte and Sisters, 168. 
Brooks, Edward, 300 ; N. C, 301. 
Brougham, Henry, Lord, 170. 
Brotvn, Thomas, 155 ; Charles Brockden. 

234. 
Browne, C. P., " Artemus Ward," 283 ; 

Sir Thomas, 70. 
Brouniing, Robert, and Mrs. Elizabeth 

Barrett, 183. 
Brownson, Orestes A., 309. 
Bruce, The, by Barbour, 28. 
Brunne, Robert of, 22. 
Brut, The, of Layamou, 19. 
Brutus of England, the legends in 

regard to him, 19, 20. 
Bryant, William C. 268. 
Buckle, Henry Thomas, 201. 
Bttltv€r-T.ytton,l^Q. 
Buiiyan, John, 75. 
Bttrr, Rev. Aaron, 226. 
Burke, Edmund, 103. 
Burney, Fanny, afterwards Madame 

D'Arblay, 125 ; Dr. Charles, 126. 



INDEX. 



313 



Burns, Robert, 122. 
Burton, Robert, 51. 
Butler, Joseph, Bishop, 99; Samuel, 68; 

Alban, 118. 
Byrd, Col. WilUam, 224. 
Byron, Lord, 138. 

Calaynos, by Boker, 268. 

Caleb Williams, by Godwin, 128. 

Calhoun, John C, 249. 

Call to Unconverted, by Baxter, 75. 

Campbell, George, 131; Lord John, 179; 

Tliomas, 142: Alexander, 260. 
Canning, George, 153. 
Canterbian/ Tales, by Chaucer, 24; 

edited by Tyrwhitt, 108. 
Carew, Thomas, 68. 
Carey, Henry C, 298. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 197. 
Carter, Mrs. Elizabeth, 108. 
Cary, Alice and Phoebe, 271. 
Castle of Indolence, by Thomson, 88. 
CatecJiisfn, The Shorter, 60. 
Cathedral, by Lowell, 272. 
Caudle Lectures, by Douglas Jerrold, 

200. 
Cause and Effect, by Thomas Bruwn, 

155. 
Caoston, William, 34. 
Celtic, its relation to Englisli, 17. 
Chabot, Charles, identifies the Letters 

of Junius, 106. 
Chadbourne, Paul A., 305. 
CJialMey, Thomas, 224. 
Challen,'James, 307. 
Challoner, Bishop, 117. 
Chalmers, Thomas, 175. 
Chatnbers, Robert and William, 213; 

Ephraim, 98. 
Channinff, W. Ellery, 258. 
CTiapman, George, 48. 
Charcoal STcetches, by Neal, 241. 
Charles the Bold, by Kirk, 296. 
Charles V., History of, by Robertson, 

107. 
Charles O'Malley, by Lever, 194. 
C7*rf.«ff>, Thomas. 301. 
ClKftterton, Thomas, 115. 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 23 ; Life by Godwin, 

128 ; edited by Tyrwhitt, 108. 
Chesehro, Caroline, 294. 
Chesterfield, Earl of, 105. 
Child, Lydia Maria, 243. 
CJiilde Sarold, by Byron, 139. 
Choate, Rufus, 250. 
Christahel, by Coleridge, 144. 

27 



Christiaii Year, by Keble, 164. 
Christopher Caustic, Th. G. Pessen- 

den, 23o. 
'^ Cliristophei' Narth," John Wilson, 

171. 
CJiurch History, by Milner, 136. 
CJiurcJt Latin, of the English Church, 

171. 
Cicero, Life of, by Middleton, 97. 
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of C, 69. 
Clarissa Ilarlotve, by Richardson, 

110. 
Clap, Thomas, 225. 
Clay, Henry, 249. 

Clemens, S. L., "Mark Twain," 284. 
CobbeU, William, 153. 
Ccelebs in SearcJi of a Wife, by Han- 
nah More, 125. 
Colden, Cadwallader, 225. 
Colenso, Bishop, 210. 
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 144. 
Collier, Jeremy, 90. 
Collins, William, 113 ; Wilkie, 196. 
Colunibiad, by Barlow, 231. 
Commoyi Sense, hj Thomas Paine, 127. 
Comjilete JLngler, by Izaak Walton, 

7L 
Comus, by Milton, 64. 
Concordance of Scriptures, by Cru- 

den, 117. 
Condensed Novels, by Bret Harte, 

272. 
Confessio A^nantis, by Gower, 25. 
Cotigreve, William, 89. 
Cooke, J. Esten, and Philip Pendleton, 

290. 
Cooper, J. Fenimore, 239. 
Corn-Latv Bhymer, name for Ebene- 

zer Elliott, 164. 
Cotton, John, 221. 
Country Church-yard, Elegy in, by 

Gray, 113. 
Country Parson, by George Herbert, 

43. 
Course of Time, by Pollok, 148. 
Cotvley, Abraham, 67. 
Couper, William, 119. 
Cox, Samuel II., 257. 
Crabbe, George, 146. 
CraiJc, George L., 199. 
Cranmer, his connection with the com- 
pilation of the Pi-ayer-Book, 59. . 
Creei^j, W. R., 301. 
Crimea, Invasion of, Kinglake's, 208. 
Ctnticism, Elements of, by Kanio?, 1()7. 
Criticism, Essay on, I)y Pope, J^n. 



:i 



314 



INDEX 



y 



Croly, George, 164. 
Cruden, Alexander, 117. 
Crusoe^ Robinson, by De Foe, 97. 
Ciidu'orth, Ralph, 73. 
Cuipvit Fay, by Drake, 234. 
Curtis, George W., 277. 
Cuyler, Theodore L., 303. 
Cyclopcedia, by Ephraim Chambers, 98. 

Dairyman's Dmigliter, by Legh 

Richmond, 157. 
Dana, Richard Henry, 238, 289 ; Charles 

A., 281. 
Daniel, Samuel, 42. 
Dante, translated by Longfellow, 267. 
D'Arhlay, Madame, 125. 
Dartvin, Erasmus, 121; Charles, 203. 
Davenant, Sir William, 68. 
Davidson, J. Wood, 275. 
Davies, Samuel, 226. 
DecJzer, Thomas, 49. 
Declaration of Independence, by 

Jefferson, 229. 
Decline and Fall, History of, by Gib- 
bon, 107. 
Defence of Foesie, by Sir Philip Sid- 

ney, 40. 
De Foe, Daniel, 97. 
Deistieal Writers, by Leland, 100. 
De Qiiincey, Thomas, 172. 
Derby, Earl of, 200. 
Descent of 3Ian, by Darwin, 203. 
Deserted Vilhtge, by Goldsmith, 112. 
Desmond, Earl of, his forfeited estates, 

38. 
Dialogues of the Dead,hy Lyttelton, 

108. 
DicLens, Charles, 187. 
Dickinson, Jonathan, 225 ; Anna, 293. 
Dictionary, English, by Bailey, 98; by 

Johnson, 102; by Walker, 133; by 

Richardson, 214; by Webster, 235; 

by Worcester, 252, 
Dictionary of A^iithors, by Allibone, 

274. 
Dictionaries, Smith's, 215. 
Digrnnma,GYeeli, restored by Bentley, 

96. 
Disciples of C7irist, 260. 
Dis7'aeli, Isaac, Benjamin, 191. 
Diversions of Farley, by Home 

Tooke, 131. 
Divine Legation, by Warlmrton. 116. 
Divorce, Tractate by Milton, 65. 
Doane, George Washington, 259. 
Doddridge, Philip, 100; his Hymns, 62, 



Dodge, Mary Abigail, 276. 
Don Juan, by Byron, 140. 
Dorset, Earl of, 41, 79. 
D'Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, 247. 
Douglas, Gawin, Scotch poet, 31. 
Downing, A. J., 263; Major Jack, 285. 
Drake, .Joseph Rodman, 234. 
Drama, The Euglish, its rise, 43. 
Dramatists, their corruption, 88. 
Drayton, Michael, 42. 
Dryden, John, 77. 
Duenna, by Sheridan, 124. 
Dunbar, William, 30. 
Dnnciad, by Pope, 86. 
Dunglison, Robley, 251. 
DtitcJi Fejyublic, by Motley, 296. 
DuycTiincTi, Evart A. and George L., 

274. 
Dwiglit, Timothy, 231. 
Dymond, Jonathan, 155. 

Early Scotch Foets, 28. 
Farthly Faradise, by Morris, 186. 
Ecce Homo, by Prof. Seeley, 210. 
Ecclesiastical Characteristics, by 

Witherspoon, 230. 
Ecclesiastical Folity, by Hooker, 52, 
Eddy, Daniel C, 306. 
Edgeivorth, Maria, 150. 
Edinburgh Feview, founded, 169. 
« Edmund KirUe," J. R. Gilmore, 289, 
Education, Tractate by Milton, 65, 
Edward VT., his connection with the 

Prayer-Book, 59. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 226, 
Eggleston, Edward, 283. 
Eikonoklastes, hy Milton, 66, 
Elements of Criticism, by Karnes, 

107. 
Elia, Essays of, by Lamb, 159. 
Eliot, George, Marion Evans, 196; John, 

222, 
ElUt, Mrs. E. P., 297. 
*' Elizabeth Wetherill," Susan War- 

Elliott, Ebenezer, 164; Charlotte, 183. 

Enterso}!, Ralph Waldo, 246, 

Endymion, by Keats, 141, 

England, Bishop, 309, 

English Bards and Scotch Re- 
viewers, by Byron, 139. 

Englisli Dictionary, by Walker, 133. 

English Grammar, Murray's, 134. 

English Language, its origin and be- 
ginning, 18. 

English Literature, how defined, 17 ; 



I 



INjPEX. 



315 



its beginning and divisions, IS; by 
Marsh, 'Zd3. 

English, Past and Present, by Trench, 
212 ; the Queen's, by Alford, 212 : the 
Dean's, by Moon, 212. 

English Foetry, history of, by War- 
ton, 132. 

English Reader, Murray's, 134. 

Enthtisiasm, Natural History of, 177. 

Essayists, English, 90. 

Essay on Man, by Pope, 86. 

Essays and Reviews, 176. 

Etti'ick Shepherd, name for Hogg, 147, 

Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit, 45. 

Evangeline, by Longfellow, 2C6. 

Evans, Marian, " George Eliot," 196. 

Eve of St. Agnes, by Keats, 141. 

Evelyn, John, 81. 

Evenings at Home, hy Dr. Aikin, 159. 

Everett, Alexander and Edward, 248. 

Excursion, by Wordsworth, 143. 

Faher, George Stanley, 211. 

Fairfax, Edward, 42. 

Fairy Queen, The, by Spenser, 38. 

Falconer, William, 114. 

Family Expositor, by Doddridge, 100. 

"Fanny Fern/' Mrs. Parton, 276. 

*' Fanny Forrester," Mrs. Judson, 243. 

Farmer's Roy, by Bloomfield, 148. 

Farquhar, George, 89. 

Father of English Poetry, o, name 

given to Chancer, 23. 
Federalist, The, by Hamilton and 

others, 229. 
Ferdinand and Isabella, by Pres- 

cott, 295. 
Ferguson, Adam, 130. 
Fern Reaves, by Mrs. Parton, 276. 
Ferrex and For rex, early comedy, 45. 
Fessenden, Thomas Green, 233. 
Festus, by Philip James Bailey, 185. 
Field, Kate, 273. 
Fielding, Henry, 110. 
Fields, James T., 270. 
FlasJi, Henry Lynden, 270. 
Fletcher, Giles and Phineas,43. 
Foote, Sanmel, 124. 

Force of Truth, by Thomas Scott, 156. 
JPo»'<i, John, 49. 
Forney, John W., 2S1. 
Foster, John, 174. 
Fourfold State, by Boston. 100. 
Fox's Rook of Martyrs, 51. 
Fox, John, the Martyrologist, 51; 

George, S3. 



Francis, Sir Philip, identified with Ju- 
nius, 105. 

Franhlin, Benjamin, 228. 

French Revolution, Reflections on, by 
Burke, 104. 

Fi^ends in Council, by Helps, 208. 

Friends, The Early, 83. 

Froissart Rallads, by Ph. Pendleton 
Cooke, 290. 

Froude, James Anthony, 207. 

Fuller, Thomas, 73 ; Margaret, 297. 

Furness, William H., 259. 

" Gail Hamilton," Mary Abigail 

Dodge, 270. 
Gallaudet, Thomas II., 263. 
Gammer Gurton's Needle, an early 

English comedy, 45. 
GarricJc, David, 102, 124. 
Gawin, Douglas, ol. 
Gashell, Mrs. Elizabeth C, 196. 
"Gath," Geo. A. Townsend, 282. 
Gaunt, John of, Duke of Lancaster, 24. 
Gay, John, 87. 
Gentle Shepherd, by Allan Ramsay, 

114. 
Geoffrey of Moninoutli, an early 

ciironicler, 19. 
Gibbon, Edward, 107. 
Gifford, William, 152. 
Giles, Henry, 280. 
Gillies, John, 160. 
Gilnian, Mrs. Caroline H., 261. 
Gilmore, J. R., " Edmund Kirke," 289. 
Gladstone, William E., 200. 
Gloucester, Robert of, 21. 
Godkin, E. L., 2S0. 
Godivin, William, 128; Parke, 280. 
Go&the's Faust, translated by Bayard 

Taylor, 286. 
Golden Fleece, Yaughan's, 220. 
Golden Regend, by Longfellow, 266. 
Goldsmith, Oliyer, 111. 
Good Newes, by Alexander Whi taker, 

220. 
Good-Natured Man, by Goldsmith, 

113. 
Goodrich, S. G., " Peter Parley," 263. 
Gould, Hannah F., 239. 
Goicer, John, 25. 
"Grace G^'eemvood," Sara J. Lippin- 

cott, 293. 
GraJunne, Rev. James, 123. 
Gratninar, English, by Lowth, 116 ; by 

Murray, 134. 
Grave, The, a poem, by R. Blair, SS, 



316 



INDEf^ 



m 



Gray, Thomas, 113. 

Greece, History of, by Mitford, 160 ; by 

Gillies, 160. 
Greeley, Horace, 278. 
Greene, Robert, 45. 
Groat's Worth of Wit, by Robert 

Greene, 45. 
Griffith Gaiojf^^by Reade, 193. 
Gristvold, Rufus W., 247. 
Grote, George, 206. 
Chiardian, The, 91. 
Gulliver's Travels, by Swift, 93. 
Giiyarre, Charles E. A., 245. 
Gttyof, Arnold H., 299. 
Gypsies, by Borrow, 168. 

Sahington, William, 69. 
JTrtcfceif, Horatio B., 306. 
Sail (7o?M»t&i«^ by Joseph Hopkinson, 

234. 
JIaJiluyt, Richard, 51. 
Sale, Mrs. Sarah Josepha, 262. 
Sail, Joseph, Bishop, 72 ; Robert, 157. 
Sallecli, Fitz- Greene, 238. 
Sallatn, Henry, 174. 
Saniilton, Sir William, 201 ; Alexander, 

229. 
SansBreitrnann, by C. E. Leland, 284. 
Sarris, James, 108. 
Sarte, Bret, 272. 
Sartley, David, 98. 
Sathaway , Anne, wife of Shakespeare, 

46. 
Saunch of Venison, by Goldsmith, 

112. 
Saven, Mrs. Alice B., 243. 
SawtJiorne, Nathaniel, 288. 
Sazlitt, Wilham, 153. 
Seathen Chinee, by Bret Harte, 272. 
Seber, Reginald, 147. 
Sebretv Poetry, by Lowth, 116. 
Seir of Bedclyffe, by Miss Yon^ 197. 
Selps, Arthur, 208. 
Selper, Hinton Rowan, 299. 
Seinnns, Mrs. Felicia, 145. 
Senryson, Robert, Scotch poet, 30. 
Senry, Matthew, 82 ; Joseph, 251. 
Sentz, Caroline Lee, 244. 
Serald, New York, 278. 
Serbert, George, 43. 
Serines, by Harris, 108. 
Serniit, by Parnell, 88 ; by Goldsmith, 

112. 
Serrick, Robert, 68. 
Servey, Jam-es, 116. 
Siaivatha, by Longfellow, 266. 
Sigginson, Col. T. W., 277. 



Sill, Gen. D. H., 278. 

Sind and Banther, by Dryden, 78. 

Sistrio-3Iastix, by W. Prynne, 69. 

SitchcocU, Edward, 252. 

Sobbes, Thomas, 70. 

Sodge, Charles, 301. 

Soffman, Charles Fenno, 242. 

Sogg, James, 147. 

Sohenlinden, by Campbell, 142. 

Solland, J. G., 269. 

Soly Biving, by Jeremy Taylor, 72. 

Soltnes, Oliver Wendell, 275 ; Mary J., 

294. 
Soly and Profane State, by Thomas 

Fuller, 73. 
Some, Sweet Some, by Payne, 238. 
Some, John, author of Douglas, 124. 
Some tfo^irnal. New York, 242. 
Somcr, translation by Pope, 86; by 

Cowper, 121. 
Sood, Thomas, 165. 
Sook, Theodore, 165. 
Sooker, Richard, 52. 
Sope, Pleasures of, by Campbell, 142. 
Sope Leslie, by Miss Sedgwick, 240. 
Sopkinson, Francis, 230 ; Joseph, 234. 
Sorce Patdince, by Paley, 129. 
Some, Thomas Hartwell, 211. 
Sorse-Shoe Mobinson, by Kennedy, 

241. 
Sowadji, by Curtis, 277. 
Sotve, John, 74. 
Soivells, W. D., 277. 
Soivitt, William and Mary, 212. 
Sudibras, by Samuel Butler, 68. 
Snghes, Thomas, 194; Archbishop, 309. 
Snman Under standing, by Locke, 

80. 
Slime, David, 106. 

SumpJirey Clinker, by Smollett, 111. 
Surlbut, W. H., 279. 
Sntcheson, Francis, 98. 
Sutchinson, John, 98. 
Syde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 69. 
Symnody, English, 60. 
Symns, by Charles Wesley, 135 ; by 

" Toplady,136. 
Symns in Prose, by Mrs. Barbauld, 

158. 
Syperion, by Keats, 141; by Long- 
fellow, 266. 

Ideal T/ieory, combated by Fleid, 130. 
Idler, by Dr. Johnson, 102. 
Idyls of the King, by Tennyson, 182. 
'' ik Marvel," Donald G. Mitchell, 289. 
II Penseroso, by Milton, 61-. 



INDEX. 



317 



Imagination, Pleasures of, by Aken- 
side, 114. 

Impencllmj Crisis, by Helper, 299. 

Inchbald, Mrs. Elizabeth, 123. 

Ingelow, Jean, 1S6. 

Ingei'sollfChdvles J., 245. 

Ingoldshij Legends'hx Barham, 165. 

In JLe)no}'iain, by Tennyson, 182. 

Innocents Ahroad, by Mark Twain, 
284. 

Instani'afio JIagna, hy Lord Bacon, 
oU. 

Intellectual System of the Uni- 
verse, by Cudwortb, 7-3. 

Interludes, tbeir origin, 44. 

Irene, by Dr. Johnson, 102. 

Irish ilelodies, by Moore, 140. 

Irving, ^Vashington, 244. 

tTacobus, M. W., 303. 

James, G. P. R., 195. 

James I., of Scotland, a poet, 29. 

Jameson, Mrs. Anna, 200. 

Jane Egre, by Charlotte Bronte, 169. 

Jay, John, 229. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 229. 

Jeffrey, Francis, Lord, 170. 

Jerrold, Douglas, 200. 

John Gilpin, by Cowper, 121. 

John Halifax, by :Miss Mulock, 196. 

Johnson, Samuel, 225; Samuel, 101. 

Jones, Sir William, 132 ; Joel, 257. 

Jonson, Ben, 47. 

Joseph Andrews, by Fielding, 110. 

''Josh Billings," II.' TV. Shaw, 2S4. 

Jiidson, Mrs. Emily, 243. 

Junius, Letters of, 105. ' 

Just as I am, by Charlotte Elliott, 186. 

I£ames, Henry Home, Lord, 107. 
" Kane, Elisha K., 252. 

Kathrina, by J. G. Holland, 269. 
■Keats, John, 141. 

Kehle, John, 1G3. 

Ken, Bishop, 82. 
- Kennedy, John P., 240. 

KenricJc, Archbishop, 308. 

Kent, James, 235. 

Key, Francis S., 234. 

Kilcolman Castle, the residence of 
Spen.^er in Ireland, 38. 

Kilmansegg, Miss, by Hood, 165. 

Kimball, Richard B., 2S9. 

King's QuJiair, The, by James I., 29. 

KinglaTce, Alexander TV., 208. 

Kingsley, Charles, 194. 

27* 



Kinney, Mrs. E. C, 271. 
Kirk, John Foster, 296. 
Kirkland, Mrs. Caroline M., 243. 
Knickerbocker, by Irvrng, 244. 
Knickerbocker Magazine, by Hoff- 
man, 242. 
Knife'Grijuler, by Canning, 153. 
Krauth, C. P., 305. 

la Horde, Maximilian, 286. 

lady of the lake, by Sir Walter 
Scott, 148. 

lady's Book, by Mrs. Hale, 262. 

Lake Poets, origin of the name, 143. 

lallah Bookh, by Moore, 140. 

L> Allegro, by Milton, 64. 

Xrf?;i6^ Charles, 159. $ 

landon, Elizabeth, 146. 

landor, Walter Savage, 173. 

Landscape Gardening, by A. J. 
Downing, 263. 

Lange's Commentary ,hj Schaff, 305. 

Langland, William, the supposed au- 
thor of Piers Plowman, 26. 

Language, Science of, by Whitney, 300. 

Lardner, Nathaniel, 117. 

Latham, ^rot, 199. 

Latimer, Hugh, English Bishop, 34. 

Law, William, 116. 

Layamon, an account of his Chronicle, 
19. 

Lay of tJie Last Jilinstrel, by Sir 
Walrer Scott, 148. 

Leather- Stocking Tales, by Cooper, 
240. 

Lechy, W. E. H., 202. 

Ledger, New York, 276. 

Lee, Mrs. E. P., 294 ; Nathaniel S , 79. 

Legare, Hugh S., 250. 

Leland, John, 100 ; Charles G., 284. 

Leslie, Charles, 99 ; Eliza, 242. 

Lever, Charles, 194. f 

Leviathan, by Hobbes, 70. 

Lewes, Mrs. Marian (^Evansj, 196. 

Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 199 ; Tay- 
ler, 303. 

Liberty of Prophesying, by Jeremy 
Taylor, 72. 

Lieber, Francis, 250. -4- 

Lindsay, Sir David, 32. 

Li}igard, Jolin, 178. 

Lipx>incott, Sara J., "Grace Green- 
wood,"' 293. 

Literature, how defined, 17. 

Little Henry and his Bearer, 177. 

Little Women, by Miss Alcott, 293. 



318 



INDEX. 



lAves of the Foets, by Dr. Johnson, 

102. 
lAving Temjile, by Howe, 74. 
lAving Writers of the South, by J. 

Wood Davidson, 275. 
Ziochhart, John Gibson, 173. 
JOocliieVs Wai^ninff, by Campbell, 142. 
Jjoche, John, 79. 
, Tjogan, James, 224. 
-^-^ Longfellow, Henry W., 265. 
Jjoiigstreef, Judge, 285. 
- 1 -Lossing, Benson J., 298. 
' Lost Cause, by Pollard, 296. 
Lover, Samuel, 195. 
Loivell, James Russell, 272. 
LotvtJi, Bishop, 116. 
Lycidds, by Milton, 64. 
\ I Lyell, Sir Charles, 204. 
Lyhj, John, 45. 
Lyrical Ballads, by "Wordsworth and 

Coleridge, 162. 
Lytteltou, Lord George, 108. 
Lyttoii, Sir George Edward Bulwer, 190. 

/ jyiacatilay , Thomas Babington, 205. 
McCliiitocJc, John, 306. 
MeCosh, James, 302. 
McFingal, by Trumbull, 231. 
j McGuffey, W. H., 301. 
' Mcllvaiue, Bishop, 307. v^ 

3IclntosJi, Maria J., 240. 
JKcKnigJit, James, 136. 
Mackenzie, R. Shelton, 282; Henry, 
127. 
,./ Mackintosh, Sir James, 152. 
McJMichael, Morton, 2S1. 
*' Madeline Leslie,'^ Mrs. Baker, 295. 
Madison, James, 223. 
Magnalia Christi Americana, by 
Cotton Mather, 223. 
y Malthas, Tliomas Robert, 156. 
Mandeville, Sir John, 27. 
iffrfij-jj, Horace^ 263. « 

3Ia}ining, Archbishop, 209. 
Man of Feeling, by Mackenzie, 127. 
Marble Faun, by Hawthorne, 288. 
^'Marion JLarland," Mrs. Terhune, 

294. 
''Mark Twain,'' S. L. Clemens, 2S4. 
Mnrlou'p, Christopher, 46. 
3Iarnilon, liy Sir Walter Scott, 148. 
^ Marry fit, C.ipt Frederick, 163. 

Marsh, George P., 253. 
. MarsJiall, John, 236. 
Marston, John, 48. 
Mary Barton, by Mrs. Gaskill, 196. 



3Iassinger, Philip, 49. 

3Iather, Richard, 222; Increase, 222; 
Cotton, 223. 

Maud, by Tennyson, 182. 

3Iaury, Matthew F., 300. 

Meditations, by Hervey, 116. 

MelancJioly, Anatomy of, 51. 

Melville, Herman, 290. 

Memory, Pleasures of, by Rogers. 142. 

3Ierle and NigJttingale, by Dunbar, 
30. 

3Iethod of Divine Govemtnent, by 
McCosh, 302. 

3Iethodism, History of, by Abel Ste- 
vens, 307. 

Metrical Jiontances^ 22. 

3Iiddleton, Thomas, 48 ; Conyers, 97. 

3Iiles Standish, by Longfellow, 266. 

3nil, John Stuart, 199. 

3Iiller, Hugh, 174; Samuel, 256; Joa- 
quin, 272. 

3Iilligan, Robert, 307. 

Milman, Henry Hart, 207. 

Milner, Joseph, 136. 

3Iilton, John, 03. 

Jlinstrel, The, by Beattie, 122. 

Minute PJiilosopJier, by Bishop Berke- 
ley, 95. 

3Iiracles, Essay on, by Hume, 105. 

3Iiracle Plays, 43. 

3Iirror, New York, 242. 

3Iirror for 3Iagistrates, by Sack- 
ville, 41. 

3Iitchell, Donald G., " Ik IMarvel," 289. 

3Iifford, William, 160; Mary Russel, 
1G7. 

3Iodern CJiivalry, by Brackenridge, 
230. 

3lodern Painters, by Riiskin, 198. 

3Ionmouth, Geoffrey of, 19. 

3Iontagu, Lady Marj', 109 ; Mrs. Eliza- 
beth, 109. 

3Iontgoniery , James, 166 ; Robert, 166. 

3Ioore, Thomas, 140. 

3Ioral Philosophy, by Paley, 129 ; by 
Ferguson, 130; by Dugald Stewart, 
154. 

3Ioral P^ays, or Moralities, 44. 

3Iore, Sir Thomas, 34; Hannah, 125. -\ 

3Iorgan, Lady Sydney, 167. 

3Iorning Star of the Tteformationf 
a name given to WyckliflFe, 26! 

3Iorris, William, 186; George P., 242. jf 

3Iotley, John Lothrop, 296. 

" Mrs. 3Iary Clavers," Mrs. Kirk- 
land, 243. 



INDEX. 



319 



Miiller, Max, 198. 
JUuloch, Miss Dinah Maria, 196. 
/ Murray, Lindlej-, 13i. 

MiisiCf History of, by Dr. Burney, 126. 
Mysteries of JIdolpho, by Mrs. Kad- 
cliflfe, 127. 

Nation, by E. L. Godkin, 280. 

Natural TJteolofjy, by Paley, 129. 

Neal, John, 241 ; Joseph C, 24:1 ; Daniel, 
100. 

Nelson, Southey's Life of, 143. 

Neivcome, Archbishop, 137. 

Neivell, I'rof. M. A., 301. 

Neiv England's Prospect, by "VTil- 
liam Wood, 220. 

Netvnian, John Henry, 20S. 

Newton, Thomas, 117 ; John, 121. 

Night Thoughts, liy Young, 111. 

Noctes Avibrosiaiice, by John Wilson, 
172. 

Normal Schools, by Henry Barnard, 
287. 

Nm'man-French, its relation to Eng- 
lish, 17. 

North, Christopher, John Wilson, 171. 

North jLmerican, Philadelphia, 281. 

Norton, Mrs. Caroline E. S., 184. 

Novum Ot^ganuni, hyJaord Bacon, 50. 

Ode on the Passions, by Collins, 113. 
Odenheimer, Bishop, 307. 
Ogden, John, 287. 
Old'Fashioned Girl, by Miss Alcott, 

293. 
Old Oahen Bucket, by Woodworth, 

234. 
« Oliver Optic," W. T. Adams, 291. 
Olmsted, Denison. 251. 
Olneg, abode of Cowper and Newton, 

120. 
Olney Mymns, 121. 
% Opie, Amelia, 167. 
' Ojiium Eater, De Quincey, 172. 
Or milium, The, 20. 
OrnifJiology, American, by Wilson, 

234; by Audubon, 235. 
Osgood, Mrs. Frances, 238. 
Otivay, Thomas, 79. 
Outre-Mer, by Longfellow, 206. 
Ovid's Metatnorphoses, translated 

by Whitaker, 2-0. 
Owen, John, 75 ; Richard, 20k 

( 
Paine, Robert Treat, 233 ; Thomas, 127. 
Paley, William, 129. | 



Palfrey, John G., 245. 

Pamela, by Richardson, 110. 

Pantisocracy , scheme by Southey and 
Coleridge, 144. 

Paradise X,ost, by Milton, 66. 

Paradise Regained, 66. 

Parish Jlegister, by Crabbe, 146. 

PavTier, Theodore, 259. 

Parnell, Thomas, 88. ^' 

Parton, James, 275 ; Mrs. Sarah, 276. • 

Passions, Ode on, by Collins, 113. 

Paulding, James K., 241. 

fayne, John Howard, 238. 

Peabody, Andrew P., 305. 

Pearson, John, Bishop, 73. 
I Peele, George, 46. 
I Peg Woffington, by Reade, 193. 
i Penn, William, 83. 

Pert.eptiou, Immediate, by Reid, 130. 
I Percival, James G., 238. 
I Percy, Bishop, 13-3. 

Peregrine Pichle, by Smollett, 111. 

Peter Bell, by Wordsworth, 163. 

''Peter Parley," S. G. Goodrich, 263. 

Peter Porcupine, name forCobbet,lo3. 

Petersou, Charles J., 290. 

Phalaris, Epistles of, 96. 

Phelps, Mrs. Almira Hart, 261. 

Philips, Ambrose, 87. 

Physical Geography, by Prof. Guyot, 
299. 

Pictorial Field BooJc of the Mev- 
olution, Lossing's, 298. 

Pierpont, John, 238. 

Piers Plowman, a satirical poem, 25. 

Pilginm's Progress, by Bunyan, 75. 

Pilot, by Cooper, 239. 

Plays on the Passions, by Joanna 
Baillie, 145. 

Pleasures, of Hope, by Campbell, 142 ; 
of Memory, by Rogers, 142. 

Pleasures of Imagination,hy Aken- 
side, 114. 

Plumer, W. S., 304. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 237. ~f - 

Poesie, Defence of, by Sir Philip Sidnej', 
40. 

'' Poet-Painter," T. Buchanan Read, 
268. 

Poetry, English, History of, 132. 

Poets and Poetry of America, by 
Griswold, 248. 

Political Justice, by Godwin, 128. 

Pollard, E.lward A., 236. ^ 

Polloh, Robert, 148. X 

Poly-Olbion, by Drayton, 42. 



320 



IIs^DEX 



JPoor HicJiai'd's Almanac, by Frank- 
lin, 228. 
/ J*op€, Alexander, 85. 
\ i'ovtev, Jane, 151 ; Noah, 302. 

*< Torte Cray on,"" D. II. Strother, 286. 

Tost,!^. Y. Evening-. 280. 

Potlphav I*npers, by Curtis, 277. 

jPottet'f AIoiizu, 259. 

Prayer -Hook, its history, 58. 

Prentice, George D., 281. 
* Prescott, ^Villiam II., 295. 

Press, Philadelphia, 281. 

Preston, Mrs. Margaret J., 270. 

Prime, S. Irenajus, 283. 

Princess, by Tennyson, 182. 

Printing, effect of its invention on au- 
thorship, 33. 

Printing Press, first in America, 221. 

Prior, Matthew, 87. 

Prisoner of Chillon, by Byron, 140. 

Procter, Bryan W., and Adelaide, 1S5. 

Professor at the Prealcfast Table, 
by Holmes, 275. 

Prose Writers of America, by Gris- 
wold, 248. 

Prymer, The Old English, 59. 

Prynne, William, 69. 

Psalm of Life, by Longfellow, 266. 

Psalmody, English, 60. 

Psalter, English, 00. 

Puritans, History of, by Neal, 100. 

Parley, Diversions of, 137. 

Parple Island, The, by Phineas 
Fletcher, 43. 

Pusey, Edward B., 209. I 

QnaUers, or Friends, 83. 

Quaker Poet, Bernard Barton, 166. 

Quarles, Francis, 69. 

Qufens of England, hj Agues Strick- 
land, 20S. 

Queen Mab, by Shelley, 141. 

Qneen^s Wake, by Hogg, 147. 

QuJiair, The King's, by James I., 29. 

Quinciina^ial Ziozenge, by Sir Thomas 
Browne, 71. 

Quincy, Josiah, 262. 

^ Jtadcliffe, Mrs. Anna. l-:7. 

Jtaleigli, Sir Walter, 40. 

JialpJi Hoyster Doifster, 44. * 

Jtamhler, by Dr. Johnson, 102. 
-Panisay, Allan, 114; David, 232. 

Randolph, Anson D. F., 272. 

Pape of the Lock, by Pope, 86. 

Passelas, by Dr. Johnson, 102. 



Paven, by Poe, 2.37.- 

Mayniond, Henry J., 278. 

Read, T. Buchanan, 269. 

Peade, Charles, 193. 

Peed, Henry, 247. ^ 

Peid, Thomas, ISoV'Mayne, 193; White- 
law, 2a2. 

Reader, English, Murray's, 134. 

Recollections of a Southern Ma- 
tron, by Mrs. Gilman, 261. 

Red Rover, by Cooper, 240. 

Redwood, by Miss Sedgwick, 240. 

Rehearsal, by Buckingham, a satire on 
Dry den, 78. 

Religio Laid, by Drjdeu, 78. 

Religio 31edici, by Sir Thomas Browne, 
70. 

Religion of Nature, by Wollaston, 97. 

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, by 
Bishop Percy, 133. 

Retaliation, by Goldsmith, 112. 

Rhetoric, by Blair, 131 ; by Campbell, 
131. 

Rhyme of the Rail, by Saxe, 269. 

Ricardo, David, 156. 

Richards, Thomas, early dramatist, 44. 

Richai^dson, Samuel, 110 : Charles, 214, 

Richmond, Legh, 157. 

Ridgley, Thomas, 100. 

Rig Jits of Man, by Thomas Paine, 127. 

Ripley, George, 281. 

Rise and Progress, by Doddridge, / 
100. 

Ritchie, Anna CoraMowatt, 293. 

Robertson, William, 107 ; Frederick W. 
210. 

Robert of Rrunne, an early Chroni- 
cler, 22. 

Robert of Gloucester, an early Chroni- 
cler, 21. 

Robinson, Henry Crabb, 214; Edward, 
258'. 

Robinson Crusoe, by De Foe, 97. 

Roderick Random, by Smollett, 111. 

Rogers, Samuel, 142.--..^ 

Rollo Books, by Jacob Abbott, 292. 

Romance, Metrical, 22. 

Roman Republic, History of, by Fer- 
guson, 130. 

Roscoe, William, 159. 

Roscommon, Earl of, 78. 

Rouse, Francis, his Version of the 
Psalms, 61. 

Rugby, Arnold of, 179. 

Rush, James, 253. 

Ruskin, John, 198. 



INDEX 



321 



Mussell, William H., Correspondent of 

London Times, 215. 
*^ Huth Fartington," B. P. Sliillaber, 

284. 

SabbafJi, The, a poem, by Grahame, 123. 

Sackville, Thomas, Earl of Dorset, 41. 

Sadlier, Mrs. James, 295. 

Saints' Rest, by Baxter, 75. 

St. JoJiH, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, 
94. 

Samson, George "W., 306. 

Samson Agonistes, by Milton, 66. 

Sanderson, John, 241. 

Sandys, George, 220. 

Sanscrit, study introduced by Sir Wil- 
liam Jones, 132. 

Sardanapnliis, by Byron, 140. 

Sargent, Epes, 286. 

Sartor Hesai'ttis, by Carlyle, 197. 

Saxe, John G.. 269. 

Scarlet Letter, by Ha^Tthorne, 288. 

Science of Language, by Max Miil- 
ler, 198. 

Schaff, Philip, 305. 

Schoolcraft, Henry E., 263. 

Schoolmaster, The, by Roger Ascham, 
50. 

Schoolmistress, by Shenstone, 11 6. 

School for Scandal, by Sheridan, 124. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 143 ; Thomas, 156; W. 
A., 304. 

Scottish Chiefs, by Jane Porter, 151. 

Scriblems Club, 93. 

Seasons, The, by Thomson, 88. 

Sedgwick, Catherine M., 240. 

Seeleg, Prof. John R., 210. 

Sentimental Journey ,\i^ Sterne, 111. 

Serious Call, Law's, 117. 

Seven Deadly Sins, The Dance of, 30. 

Shadwell, Thomas, 79. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 93. 

Shahespeare, William, 46. 

Shaiv, H. W., "Josh Billings," 284. 

Shea, J. Gilmary, 297. 

Shedd, W. G. T., 303. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 140. 

Shenstone, William, 114. 

Shepard, Thomas, 221. 

Sliepherd's Calendar, by Spenser, 38. 

Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, by 
Hannah More, 125. 

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 123. 

Sheridan's Ride, by T. B. Read, 269. 

Sherwood, Mrs. Mary M., 177. 



f 



She Stoops to Conquer, by Goldsmith, 
113. X 

Shillaber, B. P.," Ruth Partington," 284. 

Shindler, Mrs. Mary S., 239. 

ShipwrecU, The, by Falconer, 114. 

Shirley, James, 49. 

Short ILetJiod witli Deists, by Leslie, 
99. 

Shorter Catechism, The, 60. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 39. 

Sigourney, Lydia II., 260. ,|. 

Sillimau, Benjamin, 251^ _ 

Simms, W. Gilmore, 289. "^^ 

Sir Charles Ch^andison, by Richard- 
sou, 110. 

Skelfon, John, poet, 34. 

ShetcJi Book, by Irving, 244. 

Small'jiox, Inoculation for, introduced 
by Lady 3Iary Montagu, 109. 

Smith, Adam, 128; Sydney, 169; William, 
215 ; Seba, 285 ; Mrs. E. Oakes, 293. 
{.Smollett, Tobias George, 111. 

Smyth, Thomas, 304. 

Snow-Bound, by Whittier, 268. 

Song of the Shirt, by Hood, 165. 

Songs of the Sierras, by Joaquin Mil- 
ler, 272. 

Sotitli, Robert, 82. 

,S^o«f7ie//, Robert, 143. 

Soutltwell, Robert, 41.. 

Southern Sarp,hy Mrs. Shindler, 239. 

Spalding, Archbishop, 309. 

Spanish Literature, History of, 296. 

Sparks, Jared, 245. 

Speculum 3Ieditantis, by Gower, 25. 

Spectator, by Addison, 91. 

Spencer, Herbert, 202. 

Spenser, Edmund, 38. 

Spenserian Stamen, 39. 

Spofford, Mrs. Harriet E., 293. 

Sprague, Charles, 238 ; W. B., 257. 

Spy) by Cooper, 240. 

Stackhouse, Thomas, 99. 

Star of Bethlehem, by Kirke White, 
141. 

Star-Spangled Banner, by Francis S. 
Key, 234. 

Steele, Sir Richard, 91; Anne, 114; J. 
Dorman, 300. 

Stephens, Alexander H., 298. 

Sterne, Lawrence, 111. 

Sternhold^ndIIoxikins,i\ieivVss.\tQT, 
61. 

Stevens, Abel, 307. 

Stewart, Dugald, 154. 

Stillingfleet, Edward, 82. 



322 



INDEX. 



Stone, William L., 245 ; John S., 308. 
- Story, Joseph, 236. 
y Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 292. 

Street, Alfred B., 270. 

Strickland, Agnes, 207. 

Strother, Gen. D. H., " Porte Crayon," 
286. 

Stuart, Moses, 258 ; George, 301. 

Sublime and Beautiful, Burke's Es- 
say on, 10 i. 

SucUling, Sir John, 68. 

Sumner, Charles, 298. 

Sun, N. York, 281. 

Surrey, The Earl of, a poet, 35. 

Swallotv Barn, by J. P. Kennedy, 241. 
^ Swift, Jonathan, 92. 

Swinton, William, 287. 

Table-Talk, Coleridge's, 145. 
Tale of a Tub, by Swift, 93. 
Tales of a Gn'andfather, by Walter 

Scott, 149. 
Task, by Cowper, 121. 
Tar Water, recommended by Bishop 

Berkeley, 95. 
Tate and Brady, their version of the 

Psalms, 61. 
Tatler, by Addison, 91. 
Taylor, Jeremy, 72; John, 69; Isaac, 

177 ; Bayard, 285. 
Temple, Sir William, 81. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 181. 
Ten Thousand a Year, by Warren, 

195. 
Tent on the Beach, by Whittier, 268. 
Terhune, Mary Virginia, "Marion Hai'- 

laiid," 291. ' 
Terrible Tractoration, by Fessenden, 
^ 233. 

TJiackeray, William M., 189. 
Thaddeus of Warsaw, by Jane Por- 
ter, 151. 
Theology , Systematic, by Hodge, 302. 
Tfiomas, Joseph, 297. 
Thompson, John R., 280. 
\ Thomson, James, 88. 
Tliorenti, Heury D., 289. 
TJiormvell, James H., 257. 
Tieknor, George, 296. 
Tillotson, John, 81. 
Tilton, 'J'heodore, 283. 
Times, London, 215, 216. 
Times, New York, 278. 
"Timothy Titcomb," J. G. Holland, 

269. 



Tom, Brown, at Rugby, 194. 



Tom fTones, by Fielding, 110. 
Tooke, John Home, 131. 
Toplady, Augustus, 136. 
Townsend, Georjie Alfred, 282^ 
Todcoiihilus, hy Roger Aschum/SO. 
Tracts for the Times, 176. 
Traveller, l.y Gotdsmiih, 112. 
Trench, Richard Chevenix, 212. - — 
Tribune, New York, 278. 
Tristram Shandy, by Sterne, 111. 
Trollope, Mrs. Frances, Anthony, Thom- 
as A., 192. t 
Trowbridge, J. T., 277. 
Trumbull, John, 2n. 
Tuckerman, Heury T., 273. 
Turner, Sharon, 179; Samuel, 259. 
Tusser, Thomas, 36. 
Tuthill, Mrs. Louisa C, 262. 
Tyler, Moses Coit, 273. 
Tyndall, John, 204. V 
Tyng, Stephen H., 308. 
Tyrwhitt, Thomas, 108. 

JJdall, Nicholas, author of the first Eng- 
lish Comedy, 44. 

Udolpho, Mysteries of, by Mrs. Rad- 
cliffe, 127.' 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Mrs. Stowe, 
292. 

Unwin, Mary, friend of Cowper, 120. 

JJpham, Thomas C, 258, 

Usher, James, 7 2. 

Utopia, by Sir Thomas More, 34. 

Vagabonds, by Trowbridge, 277. 

Van Br ugh. Sir John, 89. 

Vanity of Human Wishes, hy John- 
son, 102. 

Vatighan, Sir William, 220. 

Verplanck, Gulian C, 247. 

Village, The, by Crabbe, 146. 

Villette, by Charlotte Bronte, 169. 

Virginia Comedians, by J. Esten 
Cooke, 290. 

Vision, New Theory of, by Berkeley, 95, 

Voice, Philosophy of, by Rush, 253. 

Foa? Clamantis, by Gower, 25. 

Wace, a Norman-French poet, 19. 
Walker, John, 13". 

Wallace, Sir William, Blind Harry's 
poem of him, 30 ; Horace Binney, 247. 
Waller, Edmund, 67. i 
Walton, Tzaak, 71. 
Warburton, Bishop, 116. 



\[~Warren, Samuel, 195. 



INDEX 



323 



Warren Hastings, Speech against 

him by Sheridan, 124. 
Warfield, Mrs. C. A., 294. 
Wanner, Snsan and Anna, 292. 
Warton, Thomas, 132. 
i^WasJiiitf/ton, George, 228. 
Watson, Bishop, 137. 
H Watts, Isaac, his Psalms and Hj-mns, 62. 
' Waverley Novels, by Sir Walter Scott, 

149. 
» Wayland, Francis, 260. 
Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, 

128. 
Webster, John, 49; Noah, 235; Daniel, 

248. 
Welsh, their traditions, 18. 
Wesleij, John and Charles, 135, 62; Life 

by Sou they, 143. 
Westminster Assembly of Divines, 60. 
WJmtehj, Richard, 211. 
What I Know about Farming, by 

Greeley, 278. 
f Wheaton, Henry, 250. 
Whedon, Daniel D., 307. 
Whewell, William, 203. 
Whipple, Edwin P., 273. 
Whlston, William, 98. 
WJiitaJcer, Alexander, 220. 
White, Henry Kirke, 141; Richard 

Grant, 273. 
WJiitefield, George, 135. 
White Doe of Rylstone, by Words- 
worth, 163. 
Whitney, William Dwight, 300 ; Mrs. A. 

D. J., 294. 
. Whittier, John G., 267. 
Wide, Wide World, by Susan Warner, 

292. 



Wichersham, James P., 287. 

Willard, Mrs. Emma, 261. \ 

Wilkins, John, Bishop, 71. 

Williams, Roger, 222. 

Willis, ]<!. P., 242. 

Wilson, Jo\in,171; Alexander, 234 ; Mrs. 

A. G., 294. 
Winthrop, Theodore, 288. 
Wirt, William, 234. 
Wiseman, Cardinal, 209. 
Wither', George, 67. 
Witherspoon, John, 230. 
Wollaston, William, 97. 
Woolman, John, 225. 
Wotnan's Record, by Mrs. Hale, 262. 
Women of the Revolution , by Mrs. 

Ellet. 297. 
Wood, William, 220. 
Woodman, Spare that Tree, by 

Morris, 242. 
WoodwortJi, Samuel, 234. 
Worcester, Joseph E., 252. 
Wordswo7'th, William, 161. 
World, New York, 279. 
World before the Flood, by James 

Montgomery, 166. 
Worthies of England, by Thomas 

Fuller, 73. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 35. 
Wycherley, William, 89. 
Wychliffe, John, 26. 
Wyntoun, Andrew, 28. 

Yesterdays with Authors, by J. T. 

Fields, 270. 
Tonge, Charlotte, 196. 
Young Christian, by Jacob Abbot, 292. 
Young, Edward, 114. 




Sr 



f 



^^z 



^^^^ 




Model Text-Books 



^dmh ^mUm% ml ^^ll^ji^^* 



>>^c 



CHASE AND STUAET'S CLASSICAL SEEIES, 

EDITED BY 

THOMAS CHASE, A.M., GEOKGE STUAET, A.M., 



PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE, 

HAVEBFORD COLLEGE, PENNA. 



PROFESSOR OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE, 
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, PHILADA. 



AND 

E. P. CEOWELL, A.M., 

PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN AMHERST COLLEGE, 
REFERENCES TO 

HARKNESS'S LATIN GRAMMAE, 

ANDREWS & STODDARD'S LATIN GRAMMAR, 

BULLIOHS & MORRIS'S LATIN GRAMMAR, 

GILDERSLESVE'S LATIN GRAMMAR, 

ALLEN'S MANUAL LATIN GRAMMAR, 

AND 

ALLEN & GRSENOUGH'S LATIN GRAMMAR. 

The publication of this edition of the Classics was suggested by 
the constantly increasing demand by teachers for an edition which, 
by judicious notes, would give to the student the assistance really 
necessary to render his study profitable, furnishing explanations of 
passages difficult of interpretation, of peculiarities of Syntax, &c., 
and yet would require him to make faithful use of his Grammar 
and Dictionary. j^ 

It -is believed that this classical Series needs only to be known to -^ 
insure its veiy general use. The publishers claim for it peculiar Ja 




=-*3ft^^^ 



§ 



merit, and beg leave to call attention to the following important 
particulars : 



The purity of the text. 

The clearness and conciseness of the 

notes, and their adaptation to the 

wants of students. 
The beauty of type and paper. 
The handsome style of binding. 
The convenience of the shape and size. 
The low price at which the volumes 

are sold. 
The preparation of the whole Series 

is the original work of American 

scholars. 



The text is not a mere reprint, but is 
based upon a careful and painstak- 
ing comparison of al! the most im- 
proved editions, with constant refer- 
ence to the authority of the best 
manuscripts. 

No pains have been spared to make the 
notes accurate, clear, and helpful to 
the learner. Points of geography, 
history, mythology, and antiquities 
are explained in accordance with the 
views of the best German scholars. 



The generous welcome given to these books, proves very con- 
clusively that they are well adapted to the wants of the class-room. 
They have been adopted in every State of the Union, and we have 
the proud satisfaction of stating that they are at this time the stand- 
ard text-books in more than 



mnt flhousan^ lchooI|, 



and the number is daily increasing. Among these are many of the 
largest and most important classical institutions in the country. 

The Publishers desire to acknowledge their indebtedness to the 
teachers of Latin throughout the country who are using these books, 
for the high position that has l^een accorded to them. Grateful for 
the very flattering welcome they have received, we pledge ourselves 
that the entire Series shall be 

In Scholarship Inferior to Kone. 

In Appearance The Most Attractive. 

In Binding The Most Durable. 

In Price The Most Reasonable. 

To those teachers who do not use them we suggest the consider- 
ation of two facts : 

1. Large and permanent success follows only real merit. 

2. Such success has been obtained by these books. 

And we are confident that if they will inquire into the merit which 
has insured this success, they will find that they are well worthy 
of the commendation bestowed upon them. 
The Series contains the following works, viz, : 



yiRG 



fvESAR'S COMMENTARIES on the Gallic War. 

^ With Explanatory Notes, Lexicon, Geographical 
Index, Map of Gaul, Plan of the Bridge, &c. By- 
Prof. George Stuart. Price by mail, postpaid, 
^1.25. 

pmST SIX BOOKS OF VIRGIL'S iENEID, with 

Explanatory Notes, Lexicon, Remarks on Classical 
Versification, Index of Proper Names, &c. By Prof. 
Thomas Chase. Price by mail, postpaid, ^1.25. 

IL'S j€NEID. With Explanatory Notes, Met- 
rical Index, Remarks on Classical Versification, 
Index of Proper Names, &c. By Prof. Thomas 
Chase. Price by mail, postpaid, $1.50. 

IflRGIL'S ECLOGUES, GEORGICS, AND MORE- 

TUM. With Explanatory Notes, Lexicon, &c. By 
Prof. George Stuart. Price by mail, postpaid, 
^1.25. 

flCERO'S SELECT ORATIONS, with Explanatory 

^ Notes, Lexicon, Life of Cicero, List of Consuls 

during his Life, Plan of the Roman Forum and 

its Surroundings, &c. By Prof. George Stuart. 

Price by mail, postpaid, ^1.50. 

CALLUST'S CATILINE AND JUGURTHINE 

WAR. With Explanatory Notes, Lexicon, &c. 
By Prof. George Stuart. Price by mail, post- 
paid, ^1.25. 

rORNELIUS NEPOS. with Explanatory Notes, 
^ Lexicon, &c. By Prof. George Stuart. Price | 
by mail, postpaid, ^1.25. 

OORACE'S ODES, SATIRES, AND EPISTLES. 

■^*^ With Explanatory Notes, Metrical Key, Index of 
Proper Names, &c. By Prof. Thomas Chase. 
Price by mail, postpaid, ^1.50. 



6 

IIVY. BOOKS I., XXI. AND XXII. With extracts 

^ from Books ix. , xxvi. , xxxv. , xxxviii. , xxxix. , and 

XLV. With Explanatory Notes, Geographical Index, 

&c. By Prof. Thomas Chase. Price by mail, 

postpaid, 31.50. 

riCERO DE SENECTUTE ET DE AMICITIA. 

^ With Explanatory Notes, &c. By E. P. Crowell, 
A.Mp, Professor of Latin, and H. B. Richardson, 
Instructor of Latin in Amherst College. Price by 

mail, postpaid, $1.25. 

flCERO DE OFFICIIS, with Explanatory Notes, 

^ &c. By E. P. Crowell, A.M., Professor of Latin 
in Amherst College. Price by mail, postpaid, $i. 25. 

Teachei-s who ai-e not familiar with these books, are invited to 
examine them, and judge for themselves whether our claim for 
them is extravagant when we assert, that 

As Classical Text-books 

They have no Superiors. 

A 

SERIES OF TEXT-BOOKS 

ox THE 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

By John S. Hart, LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and of 
the English Language in the College of New Jersey. 
The Series comprises the following volumes, viz. : 
First Lessons in Composition, . . . Price, SO.90 

Composition and Rhetoric, ... '• 1.50 

A Short Course in Literature, ... " 

And for Colleges and Higher Institutions of Learning: 
A Manual of American Literature, . . " 2.50 

A Manual of English Literature, . • '• 2.50 



Hart's First Lessons in Composition is intended for beginners. 
A greater help to the Teacher never was invented. It will revo- 
lutionize the whole work of teaching. By the increased power of 
expression which it gives to the pupil, it doubles his progress in 
every study. There is not a school but in which a class can be 
formed for its advantageous use. Any pupil able to read tolerably 
well can use it to advantage. 

Hart's Composition and Rhetoric has been prepsred with a full 
knowledge of the wants of both teacher and scholar in this impor- 
tant branch of education, and the author has spared no pains to 
make the book eminently practical and adapted to use in the class- 
room. Dr. Hart has been engaged for more than one-third of a 
century in the practical duties of the school-room, and for years 
past has made a specialty of the subject of which the present volume 
treats. The great variety and copiousness of the " Examples for 
Practice" will commend the book to general favor. In this respect 
it is unequalled by any similar work heretofore published. 

Hart's Short Course in Literature, English and American, is 
intended as a text-book for Schools and Academies. It is designed 
for the use of those who have not the time to devote to the study 
of Literature as laid down in the larger books of the Series. 

Hart's Manual of English Literature is intended as a text book 
for Colleges, and as a book of reference. 

Hart's Manual of American Literature is a companion volume 
to the " English Literature," with which it corresponds in general 
character and design. It is intended as a text-book for CollegeSj 
and as a book of reference. 

In these volumics Prof. Hart has embodied the matured fruits of 
his life-long studies in this department of letters. We believe they 
will be found in advance of any other text-books on the subject, in 
the comprehensiveness of the plan, the freshness of much of the 
materials, the sound judgment shown in the critical opinions, the 
clearness with which the several topics are presented, and the beauty 
as well as the practical convenience of the mechanical arrangements. 

The scholarly culture and excellent literary judgment displayed, 
entitle these books to a high place among the works on English liter- 
ature. The plan and arrangement present many novel features, 
and the thoroughness of detail, brevity and precision of statement, 
elegance of style, and soundness of opinion which characterize the 
volumes, call for the sincerest commendation. 



ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND HYGIENE. A 

** Text-Book for Schools, Academies, Colleges, and 
Families. By Joseph C. Martindale, M.D., late 
Principal of the Madison Grammar School, Phila- 
delphia. Price by mail, postpaid, ^1.30. 
The study of Physiology and the Laws of Health is as important 
as it is interesting. Its importance has become so generally recog- 
nized that there are now few schools in which it does not occupy a 
prominent position in the course of instruction. Dr. Martindale's 
Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene presents the following claims 
to the consideration of teachers. Technicalities have been avoided, 
so far as consistent with the treatment of the subject. The style in 
which it is written is not only pleasing, but such as to be readily 
comprehended by those for whose use it is designed. Superfluous 
matter has been omitted, so that the book can be completed in a 
much shorter period than any other text-book on the subject as yet 
published. 

Desci-iptive circular sent on application. 

— 00>®^0<. 

piRST LESSONS IN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 

-*■ For Beginners. By Joseph C. Martindale, M.D., 
late Principal of the Madison Grammar School. 
Price by mail, postpaid, 60 cents. 

*, This book is what its title indicates, " First Lessons in Natural 
Philosophy;" and it presents each division of the subject in such 
an easy and familiar style, that it cannot fail to interest and instruct 
any child of ordinary intelligence. Beginning as it does in a simple 
and easy manner, it secures the interest of the pupil by first directing 
his attention to objects in nature with which he is familiar. When 
the interest is thus excited, the subject is gradually unfolded by 
presenting, one after another, the familiar things met with in the 
every-day walks of life; thus, the most common objects are made 
the means of teaching great philosophical truths. Only so much 
of the subject is presented as can be taught with profit in our public 
and private schools, yet what has been given will be found to cm- 
brace all the more common phenomena met with in every-day life. 
The facts are so clearly and so plainly set forth, that they are en- 



tirely capable of comprehension by those for whose use and benefit 
this little work is designed. 

Teachers interested in the "Object Lesson" system of teaching 
will find this little book a valuable aid, in furnishing subjects for 
discussion. 

Circular containing specimen pages, &c,, sent to any address on 
application. 



AN ELEMENTARY ALGEBRA, FOR SCHOOLS 

^ AND ACADEMIES. By Joseph W. Wilson, 
A.M., Professor of Mathematics in the Philadel- 
phia Central High School. Price by mail, post- 
paid, $1.25. 

The present work is the result of an effort to produce an Ele- 
mentary Algebra suited to the wants of classes commencing the 
study. It has been prepared by one who for years has felt the need 
of just such a book, and is the fruit of long experience in the 
school-room. 

With this book in hand, the pupil cannot help avoiding the diffi- 
culties which invarial)ly present themselves at the very threshold 
of the study of Algebra, 

The great aim, throughout, has been to make eveiything as plain 
as the nature of the subject would permit. There is a continual 
re^•iew and repetition of whatever has been learned. Much more 
attention than usual has been given to Fractions, as a drill on them 
is believed to- be essential to a full comprehension of Algebraic 
operations, and a ready facility in performing the^n. 

It has been the aim to give such a presentation of the subject as 
will meet the wants of Common Schools and Academ.ies. It is an 
elementary work, and no attempt has been made to include every- 
thing which might be brought under the head of Algebra, The 
treatment of the subject is on the principle of "step by step," so 
that the pupil at the very outset is inspired with a degree of confi- 
dence which induces self-reliance; rendering unnecessary a con- 
stant application to the teacher for help. 

The book is commended to teachers in the hope that it will satisfy 
a need which the author has himself frequently felt. 

Descriptive circular sent on application. 



THE CRITTENDEN COMMERCIAL ARITH- 
'^ METIC AND BUSINESS MANUAL. Designed 

for the Use of Teachers, Business Men, Academies, 
High Schools, and Commercial Colleges. By John 
Groesbeck, Consulting Accountant, and Principal 
of Crittenden's Philadelphia Commercial College. 
Price by mail, post-paid, ^1.50. 
In every High School and Academy in the land, the organizalion 
of a class in Commercial Arithmetic, Business Calculations and 
Forms, will prove an element of popularity and success that will 
yield rich results. The subject itself is so intrinsically valuable as 
a means of developing thought, that, were this the only result to be 
gained, it would be entitled to and should receive the special atten- 
tion of the progressive teacher. But apart from this, the introduc- 
tion of a study so interesting in itself, so attractive, to the scholar, 
and having so direct a bearing on his future welfare, will, in many 
an instance, decide the welfare of a school, directing the channel 
of popular opinion in its favor, and prove the means of filling it 
with students anxious to secure its advantages. 

Circulars containing full descriptive notice, testimonials, &c., will 
be sent to any address on application. 

A MANUAL OF ELOCUTION. Founded upon the 

*^ Philosophy of the Human Voice, with Classified 
Illustrations, Suggested by and Arranged to meet 
the Practical Difficulties of Instruction. By M. S. 
Mitchell. Price by mail, post-paid, $1.50. 

SUBJECTS TREATED OF. 

Articulation, Pronunciation, Accent, Emphasis, INIodulation, 
Melody of Speech, Pitch, Tone, Inflections, Sense, Cadence, Force, 
Stress, Grammatical and Rhetorical Pauses, Movement, Reading 
of Poetry, Action, Attitude, Analysis of the Principles of Gestures, 
and Oratoiy. 

The compiler cannot conceal the hope that this glimpse of our 
general literature may tempt to individual research among its treas- 
ures, so varied and inexhaustible ; — that this text-book for the 



school-room may become not only teacher, but friend, to those in 
whose hands it is placed, and while aiding, through systematic de- 
velopment and training of the elocutionary powers of the pupil, to 
overcome many of the practical difficulties of instruction, may 
accomplish a higher work in the cultivation and refinement of 
character. 



JHE 



MODEL SPEAKER: Consisting of Exercises 
in Prose, Poetry, and Blank Verse, Suitable for 
Declamation, Public Readings, School Exhibitions, 
&c. Compiled for the Use of Schools, Academies, 
Colleges, and Private Classes, by Prof. Philip 
Lawrence. Price by mail, post-paid, ^1.50. 

The book is printed on superfine, tinted paper, and handsomely 
and durably bound in fine English cloth, with bevelled sides. For 
variety and freshness of selections, beauty of mechanical execution, 
and economy in price, it is unequalled by any similar work extant. 

Great care has been taken to consult the authorized editions of 
the various writers represented, that the extracts from their works 
may be relied upon as accurate : though, in some instances, pre- 
ference has been given to an early edition, when, in later issues, 
the alterations have not been deemed improvements. Many poems 
have been introduced which have never before found their way into 
any book of selections, being now for the first time published in 
this country in a permanent form. 

It is believed that this book will be found admirably adapted for 
use as a " Reader," either in connection with any of the regular, 
series of reading books, or to be taken up by classes that, having 
used the higher readers of the different series, need variety as an 
incentive to interest. For this purpose we particularly commend 
it to the attention of Principals of Academies, Seminaries, High 
Schools, Normal Schools, and Institutions for Young Ladies. 

Descriptive Circular, containing entire List of Contents, sent to 
any address on application. 



12 

THE MODEL DEFINER. An Elementary Book for 
Beginners, containing Definitions, Etymology, and 
Sentences as Models, exhibiting the correct use of 
Words. By A. C. Webb. Price by mail, post- 
paid, 25 cents. 

THE MODEL ETYMOLOGY. Giving not only the 
^ Definitions, Etymology, and Analysis, but also that 
which can be obtained only from an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the best authors, viz. : the correct 
use of Words. With a Key containing the analysis 
of every word which could present any difficulties 
to the learner. By A. C. Webb. Price by mail, 
post-paid, 60 cents. 
The plan adopted in the Model Definer and Model Etymology is 
not new. All good Dictionaries illustrate the meaning by a Model. 
To quote from a good author, a sentence containing the word, as 
proof of its correct use, is the only authority allowed. A simple 
trial of the work, either by requiring the child to form sentences 
j similar to those given, or by memorizing the sentences as models 
for future use, will convince any one of the following advantages to 
be derived from the Model Word-Book Series. 

1. Saving of time. 

2. Increased knowledge of words. 

3. Ease to teacher and scholar. 

4. A knowledge of the correct use of words. 

Descriptive Circular sent on application. 






IWARTINDALE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED 

STATES. From the Discovery of America to the 
close of the late Rebellion. By Joseph C. Mar- 
TiNDALE, M.D., Principal of the Madison Grammar 
School, Philadelphia. Price by mail, post-paid, 
60 cents. 



13 

With this book in his hand, the scholar can in a single school- 
term obtain as complete a knowledge of the History of the United 
States as has heretofore required double the time and effort. 

Descriptive circular sent on application. 



JHE 



— oo-^&ioo 

YOUNG STUDEMT'S COMPANION; or, 

Elementary Lessons and Exercises in Translating 
from English into French. By M. A. Longstreth, 
Principal of a Seminary for Young Ladies, Phila- 
delphia. Price by mail, postpaid, |i.oo. 

TABLES OF LATIN SUFFIXES. Designed as an 
^ Aid to the Study of the Latin Grammar. By Amos 
N. Currier, A.M., Professor of Latin in the Uni- 
versity of Iowa. In Preparation. 

k FRENCH VERB BOOK ; or, the New Expositor 
" of Verbs in French. By Ernest Lagarde, A.M., 
Professor of Modern Languages in Mount St. Mary's 
-College. Price by mail, postpaid, ^i.oo. 
Lagarde's French Verb Book embraces a comprehensive analysis 
of the conjugations, a new method for the formation and use of the 
tenses, and a complete paradigm of all the verbs, the whole ex- 
plained and exemplified by full illustrations. It is believed that 
the book will be found a valuable aid to the study of the French 
language. 

rOMPENDIUM OF FRENCH RULES, a Com- 

^ pendium of the Grammatical Rules of the French 
Language. By F. A. Bregy, A.M., Professor of 
French in the University of Pennsylvania. 

IN THKEE PAKTS. 

PAST FIEST. Price by mail, postpaid, 75 cents. 
PAET SECOND. " " 50 " 

PART THIRD. In Preparation. 



14 

These hand-books can be advantageously used in connection with 
any system. They lead the student from the first elements of the 
language to and through the principal rules of the French Syntax, 
enabling him, in a short time, to master intelligently what otherwise 
would prove a tedious and difficult task. 

CELECTIONS FOR LITTLE FOLKS. A Book of 

^ Poetical Selections for Children. Price by mail, 
postpaid, 50 cents. 

That sympathy which loves to link the present with the past, has 
prompted the preparation of this volume. Simply to make a child 
glad, is a worthy motive for storing its mind with poetic utterances, 
especially when the remembrance of such happiness becomes a 
well spring of delight for a lifetime. 

This little book is intended for children not more than nine or 
ten years of age, and the compiler would feel it a good excuse for 
adding another book to those already extant, should the little ones 
find pleasure in it. 

IN THE SCHOOL-KOOFvl ; or, Chapters in the 

-■■ Philosophy of Education. By John S. Hart, 

LL.D., Principal of New Jersey State Normal 

School. Price by mail, postpaid, ^1.25. 

This work gives the results of the experience and observation 

of the author "in the School-room " for a period of years extending 

over more than one-third of a century. 

No teacher can afford to be without it. 
It is a teacher's library in a single book. 
Descriptive circular sent on application. 

THE MODEL ROLL-BOOK, No. i. For the Use 

■^ of Schools. Containing a Record of Attendance, 
Punctuality, Deportment, Orthography, Reading, 
Penmanship, Intellectual Arithmetic, Practical Arith- 
metic, Geography, Grammar, Analysis, Parsing and 
History, and several blanks for special studies not 
enumerated. Price by mail, postpaid, $5.00. 



i6 

THE MODEL MONTHLY REPORT. The general 
"''• character of the Monthly Report is the same as that 
of the Model School Diary, excepting that it is in- 
tended for a Monthly instead of a Weekly Report of 
the Attendance, Recitations, &c., of the Pupil. 
Copies will be mailed to teachers for examination, 
postpaid, on receipt of ten cents. Price per dozen, 
by mail, postpaid, $1.05. 

DOOK- KEEPING BLANKS. Consisting of six 

blank books, as follows : Day Book, Cash Book, 
Ledger, Journal, Bill Book, and Book for Miscel- 
laneous Exercises. Price for each book by mail, 
postpaid, 15 cents; or the entire set of six books by 
mail, postpaid, 90 cents. 

These books have been prepared as a matter of practical con- 
venience for students in Book-keeping. They can be used with any 
treatise, and will be sold singly or in sets, as may be desired. 



Teachers corresponding with us are requested to supply us with 
a copy of the circular or catalogue of the school of which they are 
the Principal, or with which they are connected. 

Descriptive circulars of all our publications will be sent to any 
address on application. 

Please address, 

ELDREDGE & BROTHER, 

No. 17 North Seventti Street, 

PHILADELPHIA. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



